Leaving Website Reviews Can Result In Lawsuits
By Mark Alvarez at November 13, 2008 7 Comments|
Strax Rejuvenation and Aesthetics Institute in Lauderhill, FL, is suing a woman over an eleven-sentence review that was posted on citysearch.com, and The Grand Palms Golf & Country Club in Pembroke Pines is suing a woman for a similarly negative review. “These suits are extremely common and starting to make their way through the courts,” said Lyrissa Lidsky, professor at the University of Florida. “Courts are starting to develop balancing tests to guarantee it’s a legitimate libel suit before they uncover the poster’s identity.” Business even track down anonymous posters, subpoenaing IP addresses from Internet providers. “[E]very time someone publishes anything online, whether it’s a news article, blog post, podcast, video or even a user comment, they open themselves up to potential legal liability,” wrote David Ardia, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society on Poynter Online. Source: Atelier |
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7 Comments
Use word of mouth. You can’t be successfully sued.
I’m going to sue you for that Vincent
This is really sad, but I don’t think they will succeed as internet is all about freedom of speech and expression unless someone is trying to gain a competitive advantage by bad mouthing a business.
Tarun – I think that’s one thing they are trying to prevent: one business falsely and annonymously badmouthing a competitor.
But also it’s wrong for an unhappy customer to badmouth a business if they lie in the process. For example, if you go to a restaurant and the waiter was unfriendly, it would be wrong for you to post a review that said you got food poisoning there.
One question: Are the suits trying to hold sites like Yelp liable in these cases? I hope not.
America claims it’s a free country but it’s really not. There are many underdeveloped countries where you can express your opinions about trivial stuff and go about your business. Not in USA.
You can argue that she can successfully contest this ridiculous lawsuit and win too, but if the other side has an army of lawyers then she will hav to kiss her whole lifesavings goodbye in lawyers fees etc and lose her peace of mind.
USA is wild wild west with cowboys replaced by bespectaled unscruplous lawyers and guns for subpoenas, rest of the extrotion/corruption stuff is exactly the same. And no I am not bashing unnecasarily, I say this from personal experience.
Atul I agree – that is how we are in this financial crisis. The smart people on wall street are smart at scamming people – walls street recruits MBAs who can even complete with 6th graders in many developing countries.
It definitely sounds like ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) needs to review these cases and see if they can help these reviewers (if they are legitimate). I agree with you Atul, if these reviewers were honest, we shouldn’t let corporate lawyers bully such reviewers because they don’t like the negative publicity.
EFF or ACLU are you listening?