Libel, Defamation and Online Reviews – Oh My!
Written by Jay Karen on February 12, 2009 – 9:34 pmToday I interviewed Mr. Charlie Kennedy, an attorney well-versed in the issues of cyberlaw and customer content on web sites, as part of our new series of Innkeeping Industry Interviews. Charlie will be speaking at the upcoming Innkeeping Show as part of our general session on “Mastering Online Reviews and Reputation Management.”
I asked Charlie to speak with me, and to speak at the conference, because innkeepers often ask me good questions about the ability for anonymous people to possibly (and actually) leave defaming remarks on web sites about their inns.
What protects review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp!, Amazon, etc. from libel suits, when defaming reviews appear on their sites?
What recourse does an innkeeper have with regard to seeking a judgment against someone who is making false allegations about their property on a review site?
I asked these questions, and more, of Charlie. Use the player below to listen to the interview. I welcome your comments.
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Tags: Online Reviews, TripAdvisor
Posted in Innkeeping Interviews, Online Reviews, TripAdvisor | 3 Comments »
Jay Karen, President & CEO of the
February 15, 2009 at 1:51 am...
This is amazing! A week or two ago, I had a conversation with an innkeeper who felt wounded by a TripAdvisor review that was posted after the woman who wrote it demanded an unwarranted rebate and threatened retaliation if she didn't get it. At our last Inn, we had to handle a complaint from a guest who said she'd been chewed by bedbugs but allowed that she would kill the negative review if we gave her a free weekend. Odd that she'd want to stay in a B&B with bedbugs, don't you think. And, of course, there were no bedbugs!!!
February 17, 2009 at 11:58 pm...
Jay,
thanks i found this interview extremely informative and valuable. We need to keep these sites as honest as we can….thanks again, Paula & Tim Miller Cape Cod
February 24, 2009 at 10:12 pm...
Enjoyed the interview and glad that you are pursuing these issues.
Could you ask the attorney to comment on another problem, Adwords as outlined in the following?
The problem is that they have become so prevalent that they often push a lodging’s website off the first page, so that the first contact a guest may have is their negative content.
“I am a hotel manager in Sydney Australia. First off, I support, 100% liberty online and freedom of speech. I am 100% for a free internet that is protected from corporatism and any outside control. It is not only useful it is absolutely important to the free flow of news and information outside mainstream, controlled and corporatised sources.
I have had quite a few scathing and exceedingly nasty reviews on trip advisor, that have substantially damaged business over the long term. For the most part, their comments were either a) very unfair b) not realistic for what we purport to provide c) very often downright incorrect statements and d) ultimately, to me knowing what the circumstances were from the inside, simply people who took whatever little piece of information they could find, twisted that information to support their intended reviews conclusion. This is why unprofessional reviews are often not helpful. The couple of good reviews we have there, which are genuine, are so glowing, that people actually thing they are not genuine! in comparison to the very scathing ones. So ultimately it’s very unhelpful. But none of this is my issue. I have a much more serious complaint. I don’t mind bad reviews, I don’t mind a public forum for reviewers to post their stuff on. Here is what I mind and it is much more serious issue. I’ll try to outline the facts point by point and see if you can connect the dots.
1. Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia, an international global multi billion dollar firm. They have an enormous and well funded legal department going back to London.
2. Trip Advisor advertises it’s reviews. It actually uses the trading names of the business that has been reviewed, and this leads people on google to believe that this will lead them to information about the hotel in question. What it does instead, is show the review. In our case it says “hotel name” you click that and then it takes you to “don’t stay here!” or something like that. Let me make it clear. They are using another businesses trading name to advertise their service. This is quite illegal in Australia and probably many other countries as well.
3. This practice is profuse, ongoing and clearly intentional.
4. I made legal enquiries and confirmed that a) it is illegal practice. b) they do not do it to the larger hotel chains, as those hotel chains have legal departments that are capable of challenging this kind of activity. The small owner is faced with absolute insolvency as he is brought counter suits and drowned in never ending legal fees and paperwork. The justice system cannot work here for the little guy.
5. Some may say “so what”. What this means is that trip advisor is using your business name to advertise it’s service. That means your good name, or the sullying thereof, is going towards generating hits for *their* business. Hits mean statistics. Statistics mean advertising dollars. All on illegal, unethical business practice. If not for the advertisement of those reviews, those reviews could be sought out by interested potential customers of their own accord. Instead, they are pushed, right into their faces, and they may often click on it mistakenly, unintentionally thinking it was our own genuine site.
6. This is just another tool for globalist corporations to stamp out the little guy, hurt him and in some cases kill him off so that they can suck up the left overs.
In my own case I approached a law firm in Sydney a large one that had hundreds of lawyers working there. On the phone I was told by an expert who sounded very informed on this type of law a) you are in the right b) their activity is absolutely illegal c) you can put an injunction against them that is of low cost to you and little danger in terms of return suits since they are breaking the law and this is a straight forward trading suit. d) we should get assistance from the government. e) he told me he would go away and investigate the origins of this trip advisor in preparation for our meeting. I agreed to an expensive one hour meeting on the basis of that phone call. I went to their offices and attended the meeting. I was met with another person I had not spoken to. He told me “Who are you what do you want.” I relay the SAME information, and he said, and this was really as though he knew all along a) You have no case b) the law is maybe on your side but… c) these people are powerful and will drown you in legal expenses – before you know it you will lose your home, your business everything and that basically d) you have no chance to fight these people, and in his words “give up and go home is my advice to you as a friendly advice”. They took my $450 and that was it. I later found out that Expedia in London is the client of a large firm whom this firm in Sydney is partnered with as a Sydney branch under a different name.”