A decision in Virginia could affect the free speech of users of the popular review website Yelp. This could also trickle down to other areas where free speech is concerned.
The case revolves around Hadeed Carpet based out of Alexandria, Virginia. The company did not believe that some of the negative comments it received were from actual customers. They sued Yelp to get the identities of these individuals and won. The case was appealed and the appellate court affirmed the lower court’s ruling. So this matter is now going to the Virginia state supreme court.
Search Engine Land wrote about this and from the article:
Yelp argued that the First Amendment places a meaningful evidentiary burden on the plaintiff before the identity of an anonymous speaker can be revealed. The Virginia court sidestepped the First Amendment argument and decided the appeal on the basis of Virginia’s own statute dealing with the “Identity of persons communicating anonymously over the Internet.”
As a practical matter all the plaintiff was legally required to do to compel disclosure of these user identities was make a number of sworn statements to the court:
- That one or more communications that are or may be tortious or illegal have been made by the anonymous communicator, or that the party requesting the subpoena has a legitimate, good faith basis to contend that such party is the victim of conduct actionable in the jurisdiction where the suit was filed.
- A copy of the communications that are the subject of the action or subpoena shall be submitted.
- That other reasonable efforts to identify the anonymous communicator have proven fruitless.
- That the identity of the anonymous communicator is important, is centrally needed to advance the claim, relates to a core claim or defense, or is directly and materially relevant to that claim or defense.
- That the individuals or entities to whom the subpoena is addressed are likely to have responsive information
The “reasonable efforts to identify the anonymous communicator” in this case were apparently fulfilled by representations to the court that Hadeed consulted its customer database and believed that these individuals were not actual customers.
It will certainly be interesting to see how far this goes, could it make it to the U.S. Supreme Court ? A ruling like this could certainly affect other areas of the Internet at least in Virginia, forums and blogs could likely be affected.
Read the Search Engine Land story here
I hope Hadeed Carpet wins. I am all for free speech. Say whatever you want without punishment but your real name goes with your comments.
Agree with Shane. You have a right to free speech. Just use your real name to do it.
Yes, trust government and business never to retaliate. Trust employers to understand the context of your words. Trust nobody, ever, in the life of the internet, to twist your words.
I wish I lived in your world, alas.
While I find YELP disdainful for other reasons, here’s the problem with the idea that reviewer’s names should be available to the business…
There are some ridiculously vindictive business owners, this guy may be one of them from the looks of things. When telling the truth about a bad experience with such businesses, one runs the risk of serious retaliation from the crazy business owners. Make no mistake, there are some crazy mofo’s out there too. Look, this guy is actually making a Federal case out of what… a few bad reviews? Yeah, tell me more about how he should get a direct line to your home address… not sure about you, but I don’t need crazy coming to my house.
Now, is it ok for someone to post a negative review of a business you have never actually used? Of course not. How to stop that? Who knows, but that’s one of the flaws of YELP. But consider if you had been grossly overcharged, despite a written estimate – which is exactly what the reviews in question have claimed. Sure, you can sue the guy, but that’s often more of a pain in the ass than its worth. Enter YELP, where you can share your negative experience to save others. Seems like a reasonable alternative, right? Except… if you insist that your full name/contact information be available to the business owner that has already proven to be insane, unreasonable, and possibly criminal in his/her business practices… how stupid would you have to be to post a TRUTHFUL review of your experience with that business, knowing that you are inviting retaliation of any variety of flavor?
The knife cuts both ways.
The result of this particular overzealous business owner’s actions have seemingly led to the complete destruction of his own business, not only on YELP (where he has now received more negative reviews than I can count) but Mr. Hadeed himself has now “left the company”. Brilliant.
Yelp’s position in this — and their ability to continue their site without scaring off all their users — should be defended. Haven’t a lot of us run forum/commentary sites?
If everyone has to provide his name to assert something isn’t a lie online, seems like we’d be killing the internet a little bit. Or at least killing off sites that tell us useful stuff we needed to know.