Court Rules Against Online Anonymity 314
cstacy writes "The Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled (PDF) that people leaving negative feedback for a carpet cleaning service are not allowed to remain anonymous. Yelp must unmask seven critics to the carpet cleaner, who feels that they might not even be real customers."
Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
"Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books
have played an important role in the progress of mankind.
Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout
history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices
and laws either anonymously or not at all... It is plain
that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most
constructive purposes."
--Hugo Black, Tally v. California, 1960
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's interesting nostalgia. The 20th century was chock full of Constitutional abuses by Congress, the executive branch, state and local enforcement, etc. Especially if you were a minority, a woman, a member of a political party disliked by those in power, gay, or part of a niche religious sect, etc.
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So, since the US constitution is not yet three centuries old, you're advancing the bold claim that there have been at least two things some people somewhere consider abuses? That's really a statement about as novel and insightful as "The sky is up". I find your sig ironic in a non-Morissetteian sense.
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Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Shhh, you're ruining their carefully cleaned memory of a perfect past. Less than a decade after "I have lists!" McCarthy hearings either.
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and the actual physical harm DOD was doing around Savannah River. People finally woke up to that may be things will change again.
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LOL, you think that was just in the 60's? One of the primary purposes of the FBI has always been to divide, persecute, and prosecute what passes for "left" in this country.
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Until you started confusing actual political stances for party labels.
Do you have any smarter friends who could help you with this whole trolling thing, cuz you kinda suck at it.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Funny)
"Constitutionality? Yes, but the 20th Century also had Chewbacca. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!"
We're better in some ways now...and a lot worse in others. At least then, when a governmental abuse came to light it tended to actually cause an effect. Nowadays, it's just blown off as business as usual.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because thing A used to be better doesn't mean that thing B used to be better too. Can't we look at the past and say "This was good, but that was bad"?
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Sure, but the point of k6mfw's post was that "the constitution" were secured in the past, and it really wasn't in any meaningful way.
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I wouldn't say that, the hot little brunette number was explosive.
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Yeah but someone said we couldn't get a shitstain out of their paisley green shag carpets and THAT'S SIMPLY NOT TRUE.
Take that, Constitution!
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
Libel has never been a constitutional right. If someone makes a libelous statement, hiding behind anonymity, then the other party is free to investigate who made the statement. No company's terms of service can override the law.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"No company's terms of service can override the law"
I see you're new here. Welcome to America!
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It's not so much that they can't override the law, it's that the courts have determined that they're valid, and therefore lawful (even when unconscionable).
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether the reviews are true or not may very well depend on the identity of the supposed reviewer. If it's in the form of "they destroyed my carpet", the cleaning service could either try to prove that this has not happened to any customers ever, or that this review did not come from a customer to whom it actually happened. If it's not a real customer, then it's probably a competitor, and at that point, it's very much libel -- purposefully spreading lies for the purpose of damaging someone else's reputation. Reviews like this really do matter to a small business. If they reveal the identities and discover it was a real customer and a real experience, there's nothing legally they could do to remove it, because it wouldn't be libel, and would be protected. But they also can't do anything about it now, until they prove it's false, which requires them to reveal identities.
The alternate solution might be for all review systems to say "this review is anonymous [better: not a verified identity], so the person being reviewed really has no opportunity to face his accuser, so you should take this with a really big grain of salt". And maybe not even count it in the averaged star-rating. And then you've just killed their business model, because the identity/registration stuff is such a hurdle.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
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If someone was using anonymity to harm you, would you not have the right to find out who that person is?
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Fire!
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
That quote refers to anonymity from the government. It's not clear that anonymity whem commenting on corprations or people have the same protections due to libel laws.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
"Generally, a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a
person's opinion about a business that they patronized. See Tharpe, 285 Va. at 481, 737 S.E.2d
at 893. But this general protection relies upon an underlying assumption of fact: that the reviewer
was a customer of the specific company and he posted his review based on his personal
experience with the business. If this underlying assumption of fact proves false, in that the
reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead, the
review is based on a false statement of fact -- that the reviewer is writing his review based on
personal experience. And "'there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact.'" Id.
(quoting Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340).
Here, Hadeed attached sufficient evidence to its subpoena duces tecum indicating that it
made a thorough review of its customer database to determine whether all of the Yelp reviews
were written by actual customers. After making such a review, Hadeed discovered that it could
not match the seven Doe defendants' reviews with actual customers in its database. Thus, the
evidence presented by Hadeed was sufficient to show that the reviews are or may be defamatory,
if not written by actual customers of Hadeed. Moreover, Hadeed sought the subpoena duces
tecum under the legitimate, good faith belief that the Doe defendants were not former customers,
and, therefore, their reviews were defamatory."
-- William G. Petty, this case. 2014.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
I would juxtapose that with the advertisements these very same businesses often use with "Fake" customers (actors) that claim how great the service is on television and on the radio. If the business is allowed to make False statements of fact regarding the quality of their services and have it protected by the first amendment, how can the public be denied the same right? I do not see how this is any different that the very same businesses fraudulent claims in advertising.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Funny)
How dare you question the legitimacy of my spokesperson in a lab coat? I'll have you know that was a Genuine Lab Coat. Genuine.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Informative)
Defamation laws, as far as I see, only cover the negatives, not the positives. You can have all the fake praise you like, as long as there's no fake complaint. Statements of "our service is great" are not the same as "my experience was terrible" -- there's an expectation that vague statements from a company may be misleading (bluster) while not really wrong in a verifiable sense, but with specific customer stories, we expect them to be accurate, fact-based. Ads may use actors, but they generally have fine-print identifying them as interpretations of, re-enactments of, or syntheses of multiple, actual customer letters.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
Defamation covers the negatives. Fraud and false advertising covers the positives. If testimonials or endorsements are made then they are regulated [ftc.gov]. You can't legally advertise a false testimonial.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Informative)
I would juxtapose that with the advertisements these very same businesses often use with "Fake" customers (actors)
"Actor portrayal" or "paid endorsement". The FTC has this covered.
But now, do you have proof that this carpet business hires people to pretend to be customers in ads? If not, then you are condemning them for something they did not do.
I do not see how this is any different that the very same businesses fraudulent claims in advertising.
You have now made a formal accusation of fraudulent advertising against a specific company. You further use this unsupported allegation as proof that their competitors should be able to lie about this company anonymously with impunity in a direct attempt at damaging the business.
The quotes above from the case are spot on. They show a company that has made best effort to discover the truth of the anonymous claims on their own and are seeking information about only seven "people" who have made allegations, much as you have, that cannot be substantiated without knowing who they are. Libel is not protected speech. End of story.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, lets check them out then:
C- with the BBB
34 complaints, 2 unresolved
http://www.bbb.org/washington-dc-eastern-pa/business-reviews/carpet-and-rug-cleaners/hadeed-carpet-cleaning-inc-in-alexandria-va-9331/ [bbb.org]
Here's one of their commercials, seemingly libeling every other carpet cleaner in the area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmr3F2bmyyc [youtube.com]
Here's some fake customers, and no "Paid actors" warning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KaJugEcSE [youtube.com]
So again, if they can lie about how good they are, lie about how bad everyone else is, then why can't other people lie about how bad they are?
I think Libelous speech should be protected, despite the supreme courts previous rulings.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
So again, if they can lie about how good they are, lie about how bad everyone else is, then why can't other people lie about how bad they are?
They can. They just can't do it anonymously for the reason I'll elucidate in a second.
I think Libelous speech should be protected, despite the supreme courts previous rulings.
You've got to be kidding. So if I make up scandalous lies about you that cost you your job and your wife and maybe gets you some prison time for good measure, there's nothing you should be able to do about it?
Of course I expect now you'll say that by "protected" you'll mean there can't be limitations on saying something but there can be "consequences" that would be a deterrent to people speaking in the first place. Well, that's what this case also says. The anonymous posters weren't prevented from speaking, but there may be consequences -- which requires knowing who said it so the consequences can be applied.
Oh, by the way, you'll note that this case revolves around commercial speech, upon which different standards apply that are fully constitutional.
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" If this underlying assumption of fact proves false, in that the
reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead, the
review is based on a false statement of fact -"
Except this is opinion and no opinion is fact, just factual. Opinions aren't facts, that's why they're opinions. The whole thing is a strawman to unmask anonymous commentors who have every right to say whatever they want so they can be harassed by the business into giving up their right to
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:5, Informative)
I had the same initial reaction then I actually read the article...
It is not as clear cut as it seems. The man is able to map most commenters to identified customers but the seven identified in the suit are exceptions. His contention is that they are NOT customers and are making fraudulent statements bringing it under libel law instead of free speach. Apparently he was able to provide convincing evidence to the judge.
Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
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And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, you can still find information about businesses that have gone under, details about restaurants including everything but their hours and prices, and reviews marked "most helpful" consisting solely of the phrase "I liked it"
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of Yelp is to collect negative reviews so they can get paid to remove them.
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't support that enough. Here in Germany, they bought a local competitor, and suddenly all the positive reviews disappeared unless you pay for an "advertisement package".
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Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:4, Informative)
Right, and since now posting negative reviews can get you sued, what will happen?
What's getting these reviewers sued isn't negative reviews, but negative comments about a product they may have no experience whatever with. From TFA:
You have no 1st amendment right to spread lies about me. If I write a negative review of a product I've never seen, that's libel. If I write a negative review of something I actually used, I'm in the clear.
Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but the legal system usually requires the plaintiff to show harm in order to have standing. Is there harm in a false positive review? Maybe to a competitor, or to the class of Yelp users, but it's much harder to argue for a case.
This is by design. It's a justice system, not a legislative system.
Yes, there are exceptions where standing is automatic, but they don't apply here yet and would need be legislated.
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Re:And thus ends Yelp. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's pretty much four types of reviewers on Yelp, in pretty much this order or volume:
1) The semi-professional Yelp reviewer. He's writing yelp reviews for every last thing he does.
2) Shills, inflating their companies and friends, and leaving crap for competitors.
3) Guys who got a toenail in their lunch who made an account to complain.
A distant 4) People who had a great meal who felt a need to share.
If you know this, you can still read between the lines and make informed reviews.
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I have found yelp to be extremely accurate. I have never gone to anyplace with high marks on yelp and regretted it.
I have never gone to anyplace because of high marks on yelp and never regretted it.
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Waiting to review (Score:5, Funny)
Is there a place on Yelp to review the Virginia Court of Appeals?
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Virginia state penitentiary, of course.
Re:Waiting to review (Score:5, Funny)
+++++ 5 bars, will no doubt be asked to stay again.
Re:Waiting to review (Score:4, Funny)
1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but... (Score:2)
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The door swings both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this mean that people leaving positive feedback should also be unmasked?
Seriously, I completely avoid any service that has all 4/5 and 5/5 stars because in real life at least one person would find fault with it.
Re:The door swings both ways (Score:5, Funny)
4/5 - Great!
Wonderful hotel, friendly staff and nice clean room. Would visit again!
7/4/01
5/5 - Enjoyed thoroughly
Breakfast was delivered to my room at no extra cost, that's what I call service!
12/06/01
1/5 - Noisy surroundings
Was trying to have a lie in, and all of a sudden there was this awful bang outside and lots of screaming, shouting and police sirens. Hotel needs better windows, won't visit again.
9/11/01
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Going to hell for this, but +1 Funny.
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My biggest peeve is the idiots who have reviews like "Just got X Product, haven't opened it yet." or "I just ordered X Product. Can't wait for it to get here" or "I ordered a different product from a different company and it's great/horrible so this one is too!". And then they rate it with either the minimum or maximum value.
Another one bites the dust (Score:2)
With this precedent set, Yelp transitions to a place where favourable reviews are posted and negative reviews quashed. This is about as useful as a phone book.
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Given the number of obviously fake reviews on Yelp, for it to become as useful as a phone book would be a huge step up.
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Sure, on the surface that sounds reasonable. But, with the precedent of preserving anonymity removed, and it replaced with anonymity-unless-the-company-lawyers-up. So now when I get a pizza with rat parts in it, do I post on Yelp? If I do, I'm opening myself up to deal with some sort of legal action, and yes, with sufficient care in documenting the rat parts and recruiting reliable witnesses and upfronting the legal fees and so on, I'd probably win in court. But that begs the question, am I so infuriated ov
I can kind of see it (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm a small business owner, I don't want my competitors to be submitting fake negative reviews against me.
It might make sense to have both named and anonymous reviews, with the anonymous ones grouped separately. Then the viewer can decide which ones to look at.
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But then what's to keep the named reviewers from just using a pseudonym? Bob's Donut Emporium could log in as Leroy Notaperson and bash Big Joe's Donuts, Hair Care and Tire Center.
Re:I can kind of see it (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I see a lot of people talking about free speech and quoting the constitution, but ignoring libel & defamation. Being able to speak anonymously as a whistleblower or protester is one thing; ruining the reputation of a person or business with falsehoods is quite another.
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This.
It is all or nothing.
Chicken Sh*ts (Score:5, Funny)
Have the balls to stand behind your comments. If you wouldn't say it in front of a crowd, don't say it. Whomever said the Internet was anonymous has no idea what the start of the Internet was like - with email directly to your computer.
Re:Chicken Sh*ts (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the irony!
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...so said the Anonymous Coward
Escrow of sorts (Score:5, Insightful)
If the goal of the unmasking is to determine whether the Yelp complainers were actual customers (as the fine article states) couldn't the judge be provided the names of the Yelpers and the list of Mr. Hadeed's customers and make that determination without revealing their identities to Mr. Hadeed or the public at large? (I'm not saying it's morally or legally correct for anyone to know the identity of the Yelpers, but this would seem preferable to telling Mr. Hadeed who the complaining customers were, enabling him to harrass them.)
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A critical post on the internet is not the same thing as a criminal accusation.
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Expressing personal opinion about the quality of service on a site specifically designed to permit this service doesn't quite cut as an accusation.
On the other hand, given some of rumoured yelp business practices (in particular if you refuse their suggestions to take care of the negative comments and listing ranking) this might have some interesting implications if the IP ranges of the comments turn out to be affiliated with yelp.
The future of online reviews? (Score:2)
The court could protect the reviewers privacy and (Score:4, Insightful)
Virginia does a fine job protecting privacy (Score:3)
See http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+8.01-407.1 [state.va.us] for the Virginia law on unmasking anonymous users in a civil trial. I can't find anything objectionable in it at all, it seems very fair. If someone damages your reputation anonymously and it comes to court, the court must be able to find the actual persons involved if they are to make a judgment. Yelp tried to get the VA court to reject its own code and adopt the unmasking rules of other states, and they got turned down. If you read all t
LeCarre taught me about cut-outs (Score:2)
Standard Word of Mouth (Score:2)
Of course if you run a business and people randomly post crap about it for no reason it sucks; but it sucks in person too. If someone randomly tells me to never to shop at Sears, oh well.
Let me know how that works for ya (Score:3)
That presumes Yelp actually knows their real identity. Good luck with that.
BTW, as a word of advice for any company hoping to sanitize its online image - When I search for product reviews, if I find nothing but positives, I consider that worse than a legitimately mixed bag of pros and cons... Or even more laughable, tossing in some pathetic token "cons" that complain about your product just working too well: "After trying a handful of wimpy competitors, I thought I could easily handle the awesome power of SpleemCo(tm)'s Widget Frobulator, but it had me scared to go past 60%! For pros only, guys!"
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How About Protecting Consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
Shill Reviews (Score:3)
I used to work on a review site a decade ago (which is forever in Internet terms). At the time, I processed all reviews by hand to weed out spam submissions. (The site was small enough to allow this at the time. Obviously, looking back, it wasn't a scalable solution.) Along with spam submissions, I'd occasionally get a wave of positive reviews for products. These reviews would have similar wording and would invariably come from the same IP address. After a decade, I'm sure the shills have gotten less obvious about their glowing product/service reviews so I don't envy people who need to weed the shills out from the actual reviews.
The other side of this coin is that people could submit negative reviews that weren't earned whether out of spite for unrelated company actions (e.g. I don't like the founder's political stance so I'll post that his business's service stinks) or as a method of unfair competition (e.g. If we ruin their rating on Yelp, our competing carpet cleaning business will pick up). I can understand a business being afraid of phony negative reviews hurting their reputation. That being said, the names shouldn't be released to the business itself but to a third party who would also get the business' customer list and could compare them to weed out anyone who wasn't a customer. This third party would be forbidden from revealing the real names of the Yelp users - or the business' customer list - to anyone and would only report back which online screen names were not customers.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the court is setting up a huge legal risk. Let's, for a second, accept the following as true:
Now let's say Yelp releases the names of these 7 commenters and none were customers. Fine, no rights violated. (Again, for the moment, we're accepting the court's ruling.) However, if at least one of those comments came from an actual customer, then those people's rights will have been violated. The court has basically stated that no rights will be violated by assuming an outcome where no rights are violated. (Circular reasoning at its finest!)
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Saying a business sucks because of the owners stance is free speech in the sense that business donating money to a candidate is speech. Especially if I don't lie about specifics, and just say it blows. I can see this view being unpopular among business owners, but I can see its validity in context of case law.
And free speech allows shill reviews. I argue that shill reviews harm the hosting site's reputation, and people will find another site to trust. An example is amazon, with its verified purchase reviews
"Court Rules Against Online Anonymity" my *ass*! (Score:3)
Full disclosure (Score:2)
Give him a mask... (Score:3, Insightful)
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
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On the internet, if you give him a mask "he will start trolling".
Compromise (Score:3)
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I'd recommend making your own. All reviews of AC's popcorn are negative. Complaints about oversalting with arsenic and strychnine, largely, though one customer complained about insufficient amounts of butter.
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I'd recommend making your own. All reviews of AC's popcorn are negative. Complaints about oversalting with arsenic and strychnine, largely, though one customer complained about insufficient amounts of butter.
You are only saying that because you are in Canada and safe from this ruling.
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I was hoping that you would make enough popcorn to share. AC is selfish, and I'm lazy. Can I haz popcorn, please?
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Not that hard, simply sue (or more directly, convict) the guys that run the server until they are compliant or out of business.
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From my primitive understanding, the "bug-out" plan for anonymous is simply to go to another chan, like 420chan and take over, until that server is taken down too.
This all is predicated on the flawed understanding that anyone gives a shit about 4chan.
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4chan run's itself.
KNOCK IT OFF. LEARN TO APOSTROPHE.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. - yes, no shit, Slashdot. It was meant to be yelling.
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4chan run's it'self.
FTFY
Re:negative feedback? (Score:5, Informative)
A few companies, at least in New York, have gotten in trouble for fake positive reviews.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/new-york-fake-online-reviews-yoghurt [theguardian.com]
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Lets see:
Anonymous e-mail account. Check.
Post from open WiFi at Starbucks: Check.
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You do not have the right to not identify yourself.
Lies and malice are profoundly corrupting. They degrade free speech. Silence free speech That is why we have laws against libel. That is why anonymity can never be absolute,
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The notion of libel is based on the idea of doing some "harm" to the aggrieved party. The damage to reputation from a few unsatisfied customers or even SHILLS pales in comparison to what this company is doing to itself.
Attacking customers? That's like a reputation self-nuke.
Forget about "libel".
This company clearly deserves to die in a fire of it's own creation.