Rather Than Calling The Lawyers, Why Those Upset At Bad Online Reviews Should Chill Out

from the there-are-better-responses dept

You may recall that a few months back we were threatened with a libel lawsuit over some comments on a very old blog post. We get similar threats approximately once a month, almost always about someone upset about something someone else said about them in the comments. Of course, we're protected by Section 230 from liability for such comments (though, the commenters themselves are not), but another point that we've suggested to the folks complaining is that immediately filing a defamation lawsuit may not be in their best interests. First, within the comments, they are free to respond and give their side of the story. But, more importantly, the comments in question should be taken in context. Almost always, the complaint is about some totally ridiculous comment, made in the middle of a long thread, by an anonymous commenter. It's not exactly the sort of thing that anyone is likely to take seriously.

Over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo, is making a similar point, in responding to some recent threats made by companies against TripAdvisor and Yelp, over reviews that restaurants and hotels don't like. Manjoo's basic message: chill out and recognize that most people aren't stupid, and that, in context, these particular reviews are unlikely to have much of an impact, because most people are not influenced by a single outlier of a review, but the general sense in all the reviews:

When we scan reviews online, we aren't looking for gothchas--outlandish, one-off tales of awful experiences. Instead, we look for patterns. We make judgments based on the themes that emerge from many reviews, not from the crazy charges that appear in one or two. As such, there's an obvious way for businesses to improve their online standings. Rather than trying to suppress a few negative reviews, they ought to work like mad to offer the kind of service that inspires a whole bunch of positive reviews.

In other words, the one-off disgruntled person isn't likely to have much of an impact anyway, and if the overall theme of all of the reviews is so negative, then it suggests that there is a real problem that you should work on fixing.

Filed Under: context, defamation, reviews

Couple Kicked Out Of Hotel After Manager Accuses Them Of Writing A Bad Review

from the thin-skinned-hotel-manager dept

We've been covering the recent legal threats against TripAdvisor over "bad reviews" of hotels, which some hotels greatly dislike. However, it seems that one hotel manager decided to take matters into his own hands, and kicked a vacationing couple out of their hotel room and called the police after accusing them of writing a bad review of the hotel. The police admit they were called, but say the man didn't break any laws. The police supposedly advised the couple what to do to get a refund, and noted that "this is a civil matter." It's unclear from the article at the Blackpool Gazette (the link above) what evidence there was that this couple actually wrote the review, but needless to say the couple was not at all pleased about this. I would imagine that they're probably planning to write an even harsher review now, so it's unclear what good kicking them out did.

Filed Under: hotels, reviews

Threatened Lawsuit Against TripAdvisor Sounds More Like PR Campaign For 'Reputation Manager'

from the reading-between-the-lines dept

A bunch of folks have sent in variations on this story of the guy who runs an online "reputation management" company and is very publicly threatening to sue travel review site TripAdvisor under the legal theory of "group defamation." No lawsuit has actually been filed, and any such lawsuit would be a total dead end and waste of time and money for the "reputation management" firm. That's because TripAdvisor is a US company, and thus it is clearly protected from defamation lawsuits on the content written by its users by Section 230. And while this reputation management firm is in the UK, thanks to the US's new libel tourism law, any judgment in the UK would be unenforceable.

In other words, the legal threats are completely bogus. Having read through the various articles covering it, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is really just a PR campaign for the "reputation management" company, who I won't even bother to name, as it doesn't deserve any additional press coverage for threatening such a useless lawsuit.

Filed Under: defamation, reviews, section 230
Companies: tripadvisor

FTC Cracks Down On Marketing Firm That Put Up Fake Reviews In iPhone App Store

from the review-turfing dept

While lots of us were quite concerned about how the FTC might enforce its seemingly arbitrary new disclosure guidelines, so far, it should be admitted, that the FTC has enforced these new rules carefully. It did, for example, warn clothing retailer Ann Taylor for giving gift cards to bloggers who covered their new line of clothes. That was interesting in that it targeted the retailer, rather than the bloggers themselves -- but was potentially problematic in that blaming a retailer for potential actions of bloggers doesn't seem like correct application of liability. Still, in that case, the FTC only issued a warning.

Now the FTC has announced a settlement with marketing firm Reverb Communications, who was accused of writing fake reviews of apps in the iPhone app store. This FTC action makes sense, as it's clearly a case of someone passing off a review as legit, when it was part of a marketing campaign: That said, you could argue, at this point, that most people recognize that some percentage of online reviews come from insiders or friends anyway. And, considering that the FTC's explanation for why such rules did not apply to celebrities was that most people understand that celebrities get free stuff all the time, this all seems like something of an arbitrary standard. I don't have a problem with the FTC cracking down on these fake reviews, but it's still not clear that the FTC has an objective standard here, rather than an arbitrary one.

Filed Under: deception, ftc, marketing, reviews
Companies: ftc, reverb communications

NatWest Realizes It Screwed Up Sending Cease & Desist To Website Reviewing NatWest

from the nice-of-you-to-notice dept

UK bank NatWest apparently let its legal attack dogs off their leashes a bit prematurely recently, sending a nastygram cease & desist to a website that was merely reviewing different banks for students looking to open up bank accounts. This is the sort of thing that you might think NatWest would appreciate. Instead, it sent the C&D. Of course, once the press started asking questions, it appears that NatWest realized that perhaps it had made a mistake, and withdrew the legal request. Perhaps, in the future, they'll think before sending in the lawyers.

Filed Under: cease & desist, reviews
Companies: natwest

Reviewer Caught Posting Marketing Material As A Review... Uses DMCA To Takedown Site Of Guy Who Exposed Him

from the this-is-going-to-backfire-badly dept

Duncan writes in to alert us to what must be the mother of all stories of a guy caught doing something questionable online, who then goes to amazingly great lengths -- including publishing private info, blocking users, changing content surreptitiously and (finally) using a bogus DMCA takedown to take down the entire site of the guy who caught him. It's quite a story, so let's start from the beginning.

There's some site called BenchmarkReviews. I'd never heard of it, but apparently it recently published a review of a Herman Miller chair supposedly written by one Olin Coles, who appears to own the site. Fair enough. However, some folks noticed some... well... oddities about the review, and started discussing them in the "World of Stuart" forums, leading journalist Stuart Campbell (of World of Stuart fame) to investigate. In looking through the details, it quickly became clear that the "review" text appeared to have copied potentially large segments from either marketing material or a press release. Some of the sources of the material were found out -- including a Herman Miller product brochure (pdf) and a furniture store company's product description. As people commented on the BenchmarkReviews website pointing this out, those comments were swiftly deleted, and the users' IP addresses were banned.

Campbell then sent Coles an email, identifying himself and asking a series of questions about the "review." Instead of replying, Campbell discovered that Coles posted a note to BenchmarkReview's forums, publicly naming Campbell, claiming that Campbell was banned from the site for making "anonymous... threats." Campbell says that the forum post displayed his name, email address and phone number, though it appears to only currently show his name and IP address.

Next up, a reader of Campbell's site contacted the furniture store in question, Smart Furniture, who claimed that they had written their own product description, suggesting that Benchmark Review may have copied it from Smart Furniture (or that Smart Furniture was lying).

Next up? Well, suddenly the text of the original review at Benchmark Review started gradually morphing, with no notice of the changes. Of course, Campbell had the originals and highlighted the ongoing changes. Oddly, the newly changed review included a whole bunch of ads pointing to Smart Furniture, the company who claimed to have created some of the text that showed up (uncredited) in the review.

That's when things got nasty. Apparently Coles sent a DMCA takedown to Campbell's hosting provider a company called JustHost. JustHost then totally overreacted, pulled down the entire site and seemed utterly clueless about how to properly handle a DMCA takedown notice and counternotice. In the end, JustHost would only allow Campbell's site to go back online if he removed the "offending" material. It has been removed, but the original blog post has been reposted elsewhere, so you can compare it to what's left.

The DMCA claim is clearly bogus -- and if Campbell decides to pursue it, the DMCA does allow for sanctions against those who knowingly file false DMCA claims. Cambell's post was clearly providing commentary on the review, and highlighting problems with it. The material was quoted in the context of highlighting the problems with the text, and certainly was not used in a manner that infringes. It's difficult to see how much deeper a hole Coles wants to dig himself here. His activities have only served to call that much more attention to the problems of the original "review" (if you can call it that), and filing a bogus DMCA notice to take down the website of the guy who called him on his activities seems only likely to make matters even worse for himself.

Filed Under: dmca, exposed, marketing, olin coles, reviews, stuart campbell, takedowns
Companies: benchmarkreviews, herman miller, smart furniture

Pissing Off A Movie Critic By Claiming Copyright Over A Video Review... Probably Not Smart

from the just-saying dept

Phillip Vector was the first of a few of you to point us to the current copyright "fight" that is going on between Tommy Wiseau and "The Nostalgia Critic," an online movie critic, whose real name is Doug Walker, who does video reviews of older movies. Unfortunately, the specific details on this are not entirely clear. I've asked "The Nostalgia Critic" to see the details, but haven't heard back, so the following is what I've pieced together from what's out there. First off, there's Tommy Wiseau, a guy whose claim to fame appears to be that he's made what's considered to be one of the worst movies ever made, The Room. It's been referred to as "The Citizen Kane of bad movies." It's one of those movies That is so bad that it's become a sort of cult classic for people to watch and laugh at.

So, apparently after a bunch of people asked, Walker did one of his video reviews of the movie. While it got taken down, others have put it back online. Here's the first part:

As you'll notice, in the review, he uses lots of clips from the movie itself, which he talks over and discusses (warning: it's long, and both the movie and the review get... cringeworthy often). Not surprisingly, he does mock the movie quite a lot. Apparently, Tommy Wiseau then issued a takedown. Here, the details are a bit fuzzy as the only "explanation" is that the Walker then made another video mocking Wiseau for claiming copyright infringement, but without providing details:

In that video (you have to get to about a minute and a half in before it gets to this point), Walker claims that his review was clearly fair use because it's a review, and also covered by the "satire/parody clause." He then goes on to mock the person who emailed him, who apparently was Wiseau himself using an alter ego.

Honestly, looking over the details that are available, I have two thoughts: the first is that this is not a clear cut case of fair use, as Walker suggests (even if it should be). The second, is that even if it's not fair use, Wiseau probably shouldn't have made the copyright claim... though, one could argue that it'll only act as greater publicity for his movie.

On that first one. Just saying it's a "review" doesn't automatically give you fair use rights. And there's no fair use for "satire," only parody -- and it's not clear that the review is actually a parody (or, for that matter, satire). Going through the four factors for fair use... you could make an argument either way as to whether or not it currently is fair use. It would really depend on the judge, and I'd actually guess that the sheer amount of the movie that is used would probably tilt the scales against fair use.

That said, I think this should be fair use, but it's not really clear that it is. Even so, this seems like the kind of thing that movie makers are better off embracing, rather than fighting. All the takedown has done is angered a whole bunch of people. Of course, you could argue that perhaps Wiseau is embracing the "this is such a bad movie, it's good" concept to such an extreme that he thinks the takedown will actually drive more business to the movie -- which might actually be a possibility. Whether by accident or by plan, this kind of takedown, might actually be a strategic use of The Streisand Effect to get his own movie more attention.

Filed Under: copyright, doug walker, fair use, movies, nostalgia critic, reviews, the room, tommy wiseau

Plastic Surgeon Sues Online Reviewers Who Gave Her Bad Reviews

from the slapp-anyone-lately? dept

Alan Bleiweiss points us to the news of a plastic surgeon, Kimberly Henry, in Marin, California, who is not at all happy that some people wrote bad reviews of her work on Yelp and DoctorScorecard. You can see the Yelp reviews and DoctorScorecard reviews to see for yourself. It's true that some of them are really quite scathing. Of course, there are all sorts of ways to respond to such things... and Dr. Henry has chosen to sue all of her critics for " libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and interference with prospective economic advantage" and is "seeking $1 million in general damages, $1 million in special damages, unspecified punitive damages, legal costs, injunctions against the reviewers and restraining orders."

Similar lawsuits in the past have ended poorly -- especially in California where there are pretty well-defined anti-SLAPP laws that protect commenters from abusive lawsuits designed to silence criticism. Of course, if the comments actually are defamatory, that might be a different story. If you look at the DoctorScorecard reviews, it's interesting to see some of the reviews have responses from Dr. Henry's office claiming that what's said in the reviews are not true, and there's some back and forth on some of the reviews. It's also interesting to note that DoctorScorecard handed over the IP and email addresses of commenters when asked -- with the guy who runs the site later admitting he didn't realize that he didn't have to do that (and that he no longer does just hand over the info). Update: To clarify, DoctorScorecard received a subpoena, not realizing that a subpoena could be fought.

Filed Under: critics, defamation, reviews

Concrete Company Sues Woman For Posting Negative Review On Angie's List

from the well,-now-we-know-who-to-avoid dept

You really would think, at this point, that any lawyer worth his or her hourly rate would strongly recommend to clients that they don't go ballistic in filing lawsuits any time someone says something bad about you. Hell, there have been multiple stories recently about just how badly a similar lawsuit from a towing company has backfired on the company. But, yet again, we have a story of a business suing over a negative review. This time, it's a woman in Chicago who wrote a negative review of a local cement company on the site Angie's List because it refused to even give her an estimate, saying it didn't work in her area. She was upset because the company was only based 5 miles away, and on Angie's List, said it did work where she lived. So she wrote about her experience and rated the company an "F." In response, the company, All Fields of Concrete Construction, sued her, claiming she "willingly and maliciously tried and succeeded in damaging my company's reputation." Once again, it makes you wonder: which is more damaging to your reputation? Getting a bad rating online, or suing the person who gave you that rating? It's difficult to see how the concrete company has much of a case. The "F" rating is clearly an opinion, not a statement of fact. And it's hard to show that the woman was "malicious" in her rating. She gave her opinion. But, now, thanks to the lawsuit, a lot more people know her opinion of All Fields of Concrete Construction.

Filed Under: concrete, defamation, opinion, reviews
Companies: all fields of concrete construction, angie's list

After Legal Drum-Beating, Author Admits He Trashed Competitors In Amazon Reviews

from the when-you're-in-a-hole... dept

There's been an almighty kerfuffle in British historian circles the last couple of weeks, after some people noticed a couple of reviewers on Amazon were talking up one historian's work while trashing books written by others in the same field. The author in question was named Orlando Figes, a professor at London's Birkbeck College. One of the pseudonyms used on Amazon was "orlando-birkbeck", so it wasn't too difficult to assume who was posting the reviews. Word started getting around and was picked up by some newspapers, leading Figes' lawyer to deny his involvement and demand corrections be run, suggesting Figes could be entitled to damages. Then, the lawyer issued a statement blaming Figes' wife (herself a lawyer) for the reviews. Not surprisingly, Figes has now admitted he wrote the reviews, and he's very sorry. This isn't the first time authors have been caught giving themselves good reviews, and generally, most attempts to do this sort of thing end badly. You'd expect by now that most reasonably intelligent people would understand that, and figure out that the potential downside of getting caught far outweighs any positive benefit the fake reviews could deliver. Then again, you'd also expect that most reasonably intelligent people wouldn't fall for 419 scams, either.

Filed Under: reviews, trashing
Companies: amazon