Yelp backed by Facebook, Google, Twitter in anonymous reviews case

Internet heavyweights including Facebook, Google and Twitter are taking the side of popular review website Yelp in a Virginia Supreme Court case to be heard Tuesday that will consider whether commenters who anonymously criticized a prominent local carpet-cleaning business must be identified.

The case, scheduled to be heard in Richmond, has drawn national headlines and is being closely watched by First Amendment advocates as well as prominent Internet companies for the impact it could have on online speech.

Tuesdays arguments come after an appeals court in January ordered Yelp to turn over the names of seven reviewers who anonymously criticized Virginia-based Hadeed Carpet Cleaning. Business owner Joe Hadeed sought to unmask the commenters after suspecting that the negative reviews left on Yelp were not made by real customers.

In a friend of the court brief, Facebook and six other online companies warn that upholding the decision could have dire consequences for free speech. The companies represent their services as having transformed and elevated this countrys long tradition of town halls, private assemblies, robust debate, and anonymous complaints by bringing it online and making it more accessible to people everywhere.

The right to speak anonymously would be greatly diminished if those who objected to anonymous speech could readily employ civil discovery to unmask a speaker, the brief states.

The companies also argue that, aside from free speech issues, the court decision erroneously expanded the Virginia courts subpoena power by seeking to secure records from Yelp, a California-based company that does not have a physical presence in Virginia, where a subpoena would be issued.

In addition to the technology companies, which also included TripAdvisor, Pinterest, Medium and Automattic Inc., the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation filed its own amicus brief to say that the lower appeals court ruling in the case places the court out of step with the vast weight of authority.

Courts around the country have agreed that, at a minimum, plaintiffs must make an evidentiary showing demonstrating a compelling need for the information in order to unmask an anonymous speaker, EFF attorneys wrote. However, the Court of Appeals did not require Hadeed to demonstrate with sufficient evidence that it can meet that standard here in order to discover the identities of the authors of the Yelp reviews Hadeed alleges are defamatory.

Mr. Hadeeds attorney, Raighne C. Delaney, said he doesnt think the fact that other online companies have weighed in on the case will make one bit of difference.

He noted that the length of time scheduled for the case, 40 minutes rather than the 30 minutes assigned to all other cases that will be heard Tuesday, could indicate that judges have an interest in hearing more nuanced arguments on the case.

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Yelp backed by Facebook, Google, Twitter in anonymous reviews case