Court to Yelp: Reveal names of negative reviewers

A Virginia court insists that seven people who posted anonymous reviews about a carpet cleaning company should be unmasked, because the company believes they were not real customers.

Thinking different?

I recently stayed in a hotel that was described by a Yelp reviewer like this:

I thought the hotel was lovely. Which was just another support for a thought I've had for some time: Why would anyone trust a Yelp reviewer?

But people seem to. So much so that companies' livelihoods can be affected by those who leave their whinings.

Now a court in Virginia has insisted that Yelp name seven reviewers who posted their dissatisfactions about a carpet cleaning company. As the Washington Times reports, the Virginia Court of Appeals declared that Yelp comments weren't covered by the First Amendment because the posters weren't customers of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning.

Yelp insists that Hadeed Carpet Cleaning hadn't justified its need to know the posters' identities. According to the Times, Yelp spokesman Vince Salitto said: "Other states require that plaintiffs lay out actual facts before such information is allowed to be obtained, and have adopted strong protections in order to prevent online speech from being stifled by those upset with what has been said. We continue to urge Virginia to do the same."

Virginia seems to have given that view one star. Raighne Delaney, representing Joe Hadeed, explained to the Times: "The Virginia statute makes the judge a gatekeeper to decide whether or not there's a common-sense reason for someone in our position to get this information."

When lawyers lurch to define common sense, we reach dangerous waters.

Hadeed's defense was that, in examining his database, he couldn't identify the reviewers as customers. Which allows for a certain possibility of, say, database error or, perish the idea, accidental erasure.

Originally posted here:
Court to Yelp: Reveal names of negative reviewers