A California lawsuit could lead to negative reviews being removed from the web.
Yelp.com is warning that a California lawsuit targeting critical posts about a law firm could lead to the removal of negative reviews and leave consumers with a skewed assessment of restaurants and other businesses.
Lawyer Dawn Hassell said the business review website is exaggerating the stakes of her legal effort, which aims only to remove from Yelp lies, not just negative statements, that damaged the reputation of her law firm.
Though its impact is in dispute, the case is getting attention from some of the biggest Internet companies in the world, which say a ruling against Yelp could stifle free speech online and effectively gut other websites whose main function is offering consumers reviews of services and businesses.
A San Francisco judge determined the posts were defamatory and ordered the company to remove them two years ago, which a second judge and a state appeals court upheld.
The case is now headed for the California Supreme Court.
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Sunday September 18 2016, @11:05PM
As much as I appreciate reviews, I spend a lot of time scrutinizing them. For example, I was in New Mexico and looking for a New Mexican restaurant. Read a review on yelp for a restaurant that was written by a guy clearly expecting Taco Bell to be cooking in the back of this restaurant. I went anyway, based on other reviews, and it was awesome. So the one bad review was written by a misinformed customer expecting the product to be something it was never intended to be. And many of these reviews are written fueled by a negative experience over an innocent mistake or one person's bad day. In short, you get a lot of flame via reviews that really do a disservice to the process so it is understandable the process is in legal jeopardy when people let their rants get the best of them.