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Another Attempt At Using the Courts To Suppress an Online Review

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-true-i-read-it-on-the-internet dept.

gandhi_2 writes with this excerpt from the SF Chronicle: "A San Francisco chiropractor has sued a local artist over negative reviews published on Yelp, the popular Web site that rates businesses. Christopher Norberg, 26, of San Francisco posted the first review in November 2007 after visiting Steven Biegel at the Advanced Chiropractic Center on Valencia Street. In the six-paragraph write-up, Norberg criticized Biegel's billing practices and said the chiropractor was being dishonest with insurance companies. ...The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports free speech online, is considering helping with Norberg's defense. Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the group, said Biegel will get far more negative publicity from filing the lawsuit than from a bad review on Yelp. He said the foundation is seeing more and more cases of people trying to use the courts because they're unhappy with postings on the Internet."

4 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Chiropractors are quacks anyway by trolltalk.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd trust a veterinarian to treat me before I'd trust one of those fraud artists.

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  2. Long history by binkless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Chiropractors have had many detractors over the years and have a long history of using political manipulation and legal intimidation in response. They pursue a variety of goals including suppression of criticism of their questionable practices and mandating insurance coverage for chiropractic "care." They have generally been successful. That they try to suppress online criticism is a predictable continuation of longstanding behavior

    1. Re:Long history by SirLurksAlot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not going to argue with you one way or the other regarding chiropractors and their methods as I don't have any experience or knowledge of them specifically. I will say however that I think you're missing the point. The issue at hand, alleged libel in a public forum, can be applied to just about any business. It just happens to be a chiropractor in this case.

      --
      God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
  3. Review or Libel? by abigsmurf · · Score: 5, Insightful
    There's a big danger in simplifying the issues here. It doesn't seem here that he's suing because it's a bad review, he's suing because he's essentially accusing him of fraud.

    If he has proof to back that up, fair enough but to accuse someone of illegal practices like that when you've no proof is libel. It doesn't matter if it's done on a community site or not.

    If I was running a business and a disgruntled customer posted a lie about me ("all of his PCs are built in his basement by chained up mexicans!") I would want to have some legal recourse. These kinds of lies can destroy a business, especially those on a site people are likely to visit for information on a business.