Court Fines French Blogger $3,400 For Her Negative Review Of Local Italian Restaurant, Il Giardino

Free Speech

from the enjoy-your-cash,-idiots...-and-your-demolished-reputation dept

Tue, Jul 15th 2014 6:32am — Tim Cushing

Here's yet another business that, when confronted with a negative review, thought to itself, "Why not deter EVEN MORE potential patrons from ever considering setting foot in our establishment?" There are many ways to react to criticism, and Il Giardino, an Italian restaurant located in France, opted for "catastrophic."

A food blogger in France has been fined 1500 euros ($2,040 USD) for writing a negative review of a restaurant. According to Arret Sur Images (translated), Caroline Doudet wrote an unflattering review of Il Giardino, an Italian restaurant in Cap-Ferret, France in August of 2013 on her blog Les Chroniques Culturelles. She was brought to court six months later by the restaurant.

Doudet's review is actually a blog post, one that would require readers to do a little digging to get past the normal review sites. As far as I can tell from the translation, Doudet portrayed the lousy service she encountered in a far more humorous fashion than most negative reviews, all the while clearly pointing out the deficiencies she encountered.

So, rather than address the issues, or simply disregard the single voice complaining about the three waitpersons apparently needed to acquire a single round of beverages (not to mention quality issues with the food [and service] past that point), Il Giardino decided to make its mégot mal a full-blown legal affair.

It all comes back to European supervillain The Google.

Sud Ouest reports (translated) that the lawyer for the restaurant claims that the post caused "great harm" to his client because when the restaurant was Googled, the negative review was one of the first results.

Ah, yes. SEO uber alles (he said, fearlessly mixing European dialects like a trainspotting linguist). Great harm was apparently suffered and, therefore, the person who received lousy service from the aggrieved entity must pay. The court apparently agreed with this faulty line of logic (possibly due to Google's name being raised [and presumably greeted with involuntary hisses by attending countrymen]) and slapped the blogger with a hefty fine and a request that she "change the title" of the offending post.

Doudet did them all one better. She deleted it. It lives on at the Internet Archive, but won't be troubling search engine results to the extent it once did. Not that it matters. Il Giardino's decision to sue is hurting it far more than Doudet's post did.

Doudet was also charged $1,360 in court costs, bringing her total fines to a positively KlearGearian level of vindictive ridiculousness ($3,400).

There are too many things wrong with this court decision to enumerate, but Doudet's take on the fiasco sums it up beautifully.

"If bloggers do not have the freedom to write negative reviews, positive reviews make no sense either."

If businesses like Il Giardino want to continue living a "hear no evil" existence, that's fine. But no one should believe anything positive posted about the restaurant anywhere -- not if this is how the business reacts when it's criticized. Every so often, something truly defamatory should be addressed in this fashion, but just being criticized shouldn't trigger this sort of reaction. If the restaurant's Google juice is so diluted it can't outweigh a blogger, the problem lies with the restaurant, not the critic. Now that it's punished a critic, its reputation has gone completely south, something that wouldn't have happened if it had just accepted the fact that bad reviews happen and moved on.

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Filed Under: blogging, caroline doudet, food blogging, france, free speech, opinion, reviews, search results, seo
Companies: il giardino

55 Comments

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David Cortright (profile), 14 Jul 2014 @ 10:28pm

Where does it end?
I notice that Yelp's rating for this restaurant is 2-star: 6 reviews, 4 of which are 1-star.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/il-giardino-l%C3%A8ge-cap-ferret-2

I wonder if management will go after those reviewers too? And how can they if those people don't even live in France?

Tell you what, if I'm ever in Cap Ferret, I'm going to go there just so I can have personal experience to leave a bad review.
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Ninja (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 5:13am

"If bloggers do not have the freedom to write negative reviews, positive reviews make no sense either."

This is simply too damn insightful. Reviews are supposed to be some sort of guide to help the reader decide if he/she will go for it or not.

And even if the product got generally bad reviews it may not be bad for you. It's interesting for instance that Booking.com changes rates based on the audience. If you want to know how the young couples rated the place you can choose so and you'd be impressed how some rates completely change once you select the proper demography.

As for the case, the court is clearly confused (French courts confused? You don't say). I'm sure the judge love to be forced to experience a place to find out it's a crap just because his decision killed all bad reviews...
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Pixelation, 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:04am

Just Deserts
Looks like it will cost them more than the $3400 to repair their reputation.
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JWW (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:24am

Europe
Europe's total misunderstanding of the concept of Free Speech terrifies me.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:29am

Re: Europe
Unfortunately Amerika's understanding seems to be fading fast.
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Jasmine Charter, 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:31am

It's France...
It's France... what do you expect?

If only there would have been more French who fought back in WWII, rather than rolling over like spineless jellyfish, who knows what would have happened.
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Alex Lungu (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:45am

Negative reviews
I'm so pleased to see the restaurant gathering A LOT MORE negative reviews because of their idiotic decision :)
Good luck keeping it open.

> http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g776256-d3188457-Reviews-Il_Giardino-Lege_Cap_Ferret_Gi ronde_Aquitaine.html
> https://www.facebook.com/pages/Il-Giardino/119903354731296
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Maurice Dupont, 15 Jul 2014 @ 7:51am

Re: It's France...
Obviously, you never heard of 'resistance' in France during this period...

Allow me to remind you that if, in The American Revolutionary War, France didn't fought for you and didn't spend 13 billion dollars to support your country's effort, you would be an english citizen, my dear!
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nasch (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:02am

Re: Where does it end?
Tell you what, if I'm ever in Cap Ferret, I'm going to go there just so I can have personal experience to leave a bad review.

So... you'll reward them with your business?
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Call me Al, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:05am

Re: Re: It's France...
So you agree Jasmine's critcism is entirely well founded then?
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amoshias (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:07am

I hadn't heard of the resistance...
just some guy named "Vichy". But, I'm an American, so I'm not really sure who he was. Have you ever heard the name?

And that whole France - England - USA thing is kind of silly now. Let's put it this way:

"Allow me to remind you, my dear Afghani friend, that if not for the US, you would be a Russian citizen today! Think about that before you criticize America and its wartime actions."

Now, that sounds ridiculous NOW, and these events AREN'T hundreds of years stale.
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sneaking.ninja, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:18am

legal fund
how can i donate to her legal fund? :P
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Michael, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:27am

Re: Europe
Free Speech:

Not having to pay to speak out loud.

(unless you have said something negative about a business, or another person, or a politician, or referred to something owned by Disney)
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Matthew A. Sawtell, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:31am

I am a bit confused... what law was cited to sue her with?
Seriously? What European Union or French National law was used?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:32am

Re: It's France...
It's a pity how soon you have forgotten Lafayette.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:38am

Re: Re: It's France...
Eh, bigots only remember those things that support their bigotry.
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W Klink (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:38am

Why not demand a positive review
Think of how much business they lost because they didn't get a positive review. Sure, the negative review may have kept some customers away, but a positive review would have actually brought in additional customers. I don't understand why these missing customers weren't included in the calculation of lost (potential) revenue.

If anyone can claim that a negative review cost them money, then clearly a lack of positive reviews is also costing money.
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DSchneider (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:49am

Re: Re: Where does it end?
Well if he goes to a competing restaurant then he can be sued for causing harm to the original one. And lets not even consider what would happen if he wrote a positive review of the other restaurant.
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ComputerAddict (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:51am

Re: Re: Where does it end?
He never said he would pay them.... "No Thanks, I'll just hav water" .... or Dine and Mosey on out (No need to Dash at places with lousy service... they probably wont know your gone for an hour anyways.)
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Michael, 15 Jul 2014 @ 8:59am

Re: Re: Where does it end?
I'm not even going to go to France anymore. It's now on my list right below New Jersey.
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AricTheRed (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: It's France...
Ahem....

I like to think that my cousin and a few others have repaid that, very old, debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_R._Bertoldo
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sorrykb (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 9:24am

Re: It's France...
And just how long after the Nazi invasion of France did the U.S. wait to enter the war?
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Ninja (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: It's France...
I'm inclined to think that faced with an invasion like that he would roll over like spineless jellyfish.
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AricTheRed (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:50am

Re: Re: It's France...
637 days from the initial invasion on March 10, 1940 until December 7, 1941 when the US declared war on the Axis powers. However one could argue that it was much sooner than that with politically unpopular efforts like Lend-Lease which began officially on March 11, 1941.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 10:55am

Re: Europe
The problem is European and in this case French defamation law.

In the US, if the matter is of public concern the burden of proving falsity is on the plaintiff.

If the statement is not capable of being proven false, it's a value judgment and absolutely protected as free speech.

Not so in Europe, where insulting or denigrating speech is punishable independently of its truth or falsity, and the law even where recognizing truth as a defense puts the burden on the speaker.

The US constitutional approach to free speech is really unique.

France also have laws protecting the flag, anthem and public institutions against insult something that would be unthinkable in the US.

And don't mention France's totalitarian laws against denying or trivializing war crimes and genocide.
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JBDragon (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Re: Where does it end?
So a Restaurant Reviewer can only give out all Positive or All Negative Reviews according to you!!!! God forbid if he/she gave out reviews based on real facts!!! As they saw it at that time.

Lots of positive Reviews will cancel out a few bad reviews!!! If you had good food and service, you should have lots of Positive reviews!!!

For example, I look at the reviews at Amazon, and the first ones I generally go to are the 1 Star reviews. When I read them and they are just a idiot and really their fault, and the 1 star is just crap. I can clearly see that!!! So many times 1 star on the most stupid thing that should have been a 4 star at worse, but should have really been a 5 star because the person expected something that wasn't even listed!!!!

After I find what few legit complaints there are, I go look at the 5 star ones and some of the 3 star, etc and can really get a real picture. Then I end up buying it!!! It's always turned out like I expected, Good!!! Just as Advertised!!!

If all you have is a couple Negative reviews and no Positive reviews, that's also pretty telling. It really just means at BEST, it's just OK, and nothing to write home about!!! Not worth your time to write anything Pro or Neg. When you start out that low, it doesn't take much to get someone that had Bad service/food!!! Generally people will complain more then writing a Positive review. If you have great food and great service, etc, people are going to write Positive reviews and those positive reviews will over shadow those few Negative reviews. No one can be 100% perfect.

If you get 99% happy customers, you're doing really good. But that 1% adds up with more and more people. Still if.5% write the Negative reviews out of that 1% group, and 10% write a Positive review from that 99% group, You're doing really good. Those few Negative reviews will end up canceled out. Now if you go suing those few people, you're going to get a hit from everyone. I sure wouldn't go there. I could no longer trust anything I could read about the place being all Positive!!! There's nothing that's 100% perfect!!! Even the BEST 5 star place is going to get a few Negative reviews!!!
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:16am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Where does it end?
" Even the BEST 5 star place is going to get a few Negative reviews!!!"

Indeed. And if I see something that has no negative reviews at all, I don't think that the thing is awesome. I think the positive reviews are fakes.
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OolongKaloofid, 15 Jul 2014 @ 12:04pm

Guillotine
I think the French court was too lenient. I Think they should have made here an example with a public execution. My GOD, how dare she complain about the Almighty Culinary Elite. They invented food, eating, and certainly Gastronomy, and she dare to question them. They also invented table service so they would most assuredly know good service from bad service. Besides, what business does the customer have interrupting the service staff while the waiters are sending text messages and ignoring the customers. We are an obvious inconvenience to them. Off with her head!
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That One Guy (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 2:13pm

Now That is how you do it
With a single lawsuit they have completely and utterly destroyed any value or worth of positive reviews about their restaurant, because if this is what happens when someone posts a negative review, then it immediately brings into question whether someone gave them a positive review because they had a positive experience, or because they worried they'd get sued if they didn't.

You also have to wonder how many negative reviews were removed or never written, over fears or due to threats of being sued.

Really, most restaurants would have to knowingly poison their customers to make their reputation this toxic, this one did it with a single lawsuit, you've almost got to admire screwing up that epically.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 15 Jul 2014 @ 3:24pm

I was over on Ars in the discussion about the Amazon "store" who got a horribly over-broad subpoena to unmask commenters based on the theory of they are a secret cabal out to destroy us.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/judge-orders-unmasking-of-amazon-com-negative-reviewers/

I n the discussion I ran across someone who ran a restaurant who talked about how much money a single bad review could cost them... then it hit me.

"I am curious how you quantify the amount of money a bad review costs you.
I keep hearing about these massive losses because of bad reviews, and the industry that claims to have all the answers popping up touting these numbers.
From my perspective these claims look very much the like claimed losses to piracy numbers where a single download is worth more than the GDP of several nations, and the companies who sell a new magic bullet that will totally solve the problem (even though the same ideas have failed every single time before).
We've seen far to many companies who have gone off the deep end in demands for nothing less than perfect reviews, and some willing to sue and publicly bash dissatisfied customers."

Online reputation is the new forum for copyright lawyers.
You sell this narrative how people OWE you a great review, and that bad reviews are them stealing money from you.

Before the internet, people learned what places were good or bad by word or mouth or first hand experience. Now we've slapped 'on the internet' onto these things and much money is spent to curate a bunch of awesome reviews while the service actually blows.

If a single review is so damaging to your reputation, why did you give such crappy service in the eyes of the person who wrote it?

This is not to discount the idea what your competitors are trying to screw your rating, it happens, but if you are so obsessed with a review over the actual service you provide... perhaps you earned those shitty reviews.

We are enshrining into law the idea that that hurt my feels, you owe me thousands of dollars. It needs to stop.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2014 @ 4:39pm

A French citizen has been fined for criticizing Italian food.

Honestly, isn't this one of the signs of the Apocalypse?
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Tim A, 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:27pm

I love irony. They FAILED by winning.

I smell a right to be forgotten claim coming up.
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james wills, 15 Jul 2014 @ 11:34pm

Ive been to this restaurant before and it was absolutely terrible.
The trouble that the restaurant would go to as to shut the blogger up is a show of their character.
New comers stay clear.
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stef, 16 Jul 2014 @ 12:05am

Re: I hadn't heard of the resistance...
Vichy is a town... used by Marechal Petain to host the government when the german invasion took Paris.
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Harald K, 16 Jul 2014 @ 1:35am

Dysfunctionality of reviews
Don't forget that there are also people who will threaten to leave a bad review unless they get paid / free food / extra service of some sort. I tried to dig down in this story to make sure it wasn't that sort of extortion the critic was fined for, but my French isn't good enough, and I'm drowning in tertiary sources.
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Untelp, 16 Jul 2014 @ 5:19am

So much deep analysis in those comments
Of course everyone like likes freedom and liberty. Besides basic French bashing racism, any reflection on how the law is supposed to protect individuals and people? Come on, the American view of 'anyone can say any bullshit on everything' is not that shared in the whole world.
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Yls Novak, 16 Jul 2014 @ 6:21am

One point worth noticing : while the restaurant did take a lawyer, the blogger didn't take any to the court.

Any layer would have easily won the trial because there are many judgements in favor of bloggers in similar cases.

She was naive
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John William Haueter, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:15am

Il Giardino-France-Comments
I read this article with much interest. Having been an owner of various food and bar establishments, I had previously thought of the blogging and internet sites such as TripAdvisor,degustapanama, booking etc. as good feedback sources to better the quality of the establishments i owned. I do not believe that anymore as the business has changed so much and dramatically in teh past 5 years only. I believe that it greatly hurts establishments today, much more then helping them to improve. I would be interested to discuss this issue and explain more on why I believe so. If interested please contact me at the e-mail address above.It could be real interesting and I wold write the article.I have written many articles about food and establishments for Magazines, News Papaers etc. before. Best regards John
[ link to this | view in thread ]
John William Haueter, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:15am

Il Giardino-France-Comments
I read this article with much interest. Having been an owner of various food and bar establishments, I had previously thought of the blogging and internet sites such as TripAdvisor,degustapanama, booking etc. as good feedback sources to better the quality of the establishments i owned. I do not believe that anymore as the business has changed so much and dramatically in teh past 5 years only. I believe that it greatly hurts establishments today, much more then helping them to improve. I would be interested to discuss this issue and explain more on why I believe so. If interested please contact me at the e-mail address above.It could be real interesting and I wold write the article.I have written many articles about food and establishments for Magazines, News Papers etc. before. Best regards John
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Gerard, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:23am

Re: Re: Europe
If the US had punishments in law for offending the flag then a LOT of politicians, athletes and citizens in general would be in jail or paying hefty fines on a daily basis.
Flag pins, flag license plates, flag clothes... all are illegal and insulting to the Flag according to US law.
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Reality bites, 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:25am

Judges... Are they dumbest lifeform in the known universe?
If not they are closely related and spend holidays with them.
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nasch (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:33am

Re: Re: Re: Europe
Flag pins, flag license plates, flag clothes... all are illegal and insulting to the Flag according to US law.

What law is that?
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nasch (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:33am

Re: Il Giardino-France-Comments
I would be interested to discuss this issue and explain more on why I believe so. If interested please contact me at the e-mail address above.

Why not just discuss it here?
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bert, 16 Jul 2014 @ 10:50am

Re: Re: Re: Europe
Flag pins, flag license plates, flag clothes... all are illegal and insulting to the Flag according to US law.

Not entirely true. Lapel pins are considered replicas and are OK within the US Flag Code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Flag_Code

And no punishments are ever made, since it would conflict with the 1st Amendment.
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BeeAitch (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 5:00pm

Re: Re: Il Giardino-France-Comments
Or just click on the "Submit a Story" link at the top of the page. ;)
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John85851 (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 6:11pm

This is just a symptom
This is just a symptom of a much larger problem, namely:
* Who's the lawyer who agreed to take this case? Why did he think suing a negative reviewer was a good idea?
* What court allowed this lawsuit in the first place?
* Was the review libelous? Or was the entire argument over the fact that the restaurant just didn't like the review?
* Who's the judge that ruled in favor of the restaurant? Does Europe not have similar "right to free speech" like the US? What about the "this is my experience" defense?
* And does the judge realize what kind of precedent this sets for other reviewers? Will people be afraid to post a negative review out of fear of getting sued? Will other restaurants use this case as a way to sue people they don't like?
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nasch (profile), 16 Jul 2014 @ 9:26pm

Re: This is just a symptom
Does Europe not have similar "right to free speech" like the US?

I don't think any other country has free speech protections as strong as the US's.
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JDS, 17 Jul 2014 @ 8:42am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Europe
US Flag Code isn't actually, law, FYI, it's more of a 'suggestion'. But yes, The Supreme Court has ruled that it's all covered under Free Speech anywhos.
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Tim A, 17 Jul 2014 @ 12:53pm

The TripAdvisor ratings have since been manipulated!
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Rakesh Malik, 18 Jul 2014 @ 7:28am

Re: Where does it end?
I'm surprised that no one's railing at the courts about this. That's not going to do the French tourism industry any favors.

Travelers should just start writing harsh reviews of French business and staying away from france. Fortunately, there are a lot of beautiful places in the world to visit, so avoiding France won't be particularly difficult.
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nasch (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 8:17am

Re: Re: Where does it end?
Fortunately, there are a lot of beautiful places in the world to visit, so avoiding France won't be particularly difficult.

If you're bombing Libya it will take a lot more fuel, but it can be done.
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Anupama Rao, 10 Dec 2014 @ 5:05am

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Maribeth Cardinale, 13 Dec 2014 @ 3:43am

I read a similar article at Long Island Restaurants.
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Prasenjeet, 9 Nov 2015 @ 11:12am

I am sure France does not has an authoritarian system. When we talk about democracy, it starts with the judicial system only. It's surprising to see how come the court found the allegations relevant. But after getting highlighted for this cheap act, I am sure Il giardino by now must have understood the power of negative reviews. Negative reviews should strongly be taken as a quality feedback and hence improve your quality not to penalize them.

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harish, 16 Aug 2017 @ 3:19am

writing a bad review about restaurant purposefully is not good at all. it can affect sales and reputation of that restaurant.
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