Court Rules Against Online Anonymity

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."

Comments

Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Chris Mattern]

"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

[k6mfw]

that was back in 20th century when the US had a Constitution and three branches of govt for checks and balances.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[korbulon]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence the NSA, to end all anonymity.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. During the 60s the CIA, NSA and FBI were flagrantly abusing their powers and authority. Never learned about the Church Committee?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Feature, not bug!

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[i kan reed]

Shhh, you're ruining their carefully cleaned memory of a perfect past. Less than a decade after "I have lists!" McCarthy hearings either.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[SJHillman]

"No company's terms of service can override the law"

I see you're new here. Welcome to America!

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[Desler]

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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[gstoddart]

"No company's terms of service can override the law"

I see you're new here. Welcome to America!

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

[Desler]

Or being put into "internment" camps for your family lineage. These "good ole days" people are so ridiculous.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Entropius]

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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[cold fjord]

that was back in 20th century when the US had a Constitution and three branches of govt for checks and balances.

It was a state court that issued the ruling under Virginia law, not a Federal court under Federal law. The US Federal government still has a Constitution and three branches of government for checks and balances.

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[Wordplay]

"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

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget Genocide (going back even further).

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[i kan reed]

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.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD THIS DOWN. The business in question is not a governmental agency. This is not political. There is no persecution. It's just libel.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[geekoid]

If someone was using anonymity to harm you, would you not have the right to find out who that person is?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[geekoid]

Every century sine it was written thing have happened that some people consider constitution abuses.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[naasking]

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

[zlives]

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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[Anonymous Coward]

Going back even further, there's nothing like the good old days before the big bang. ;-)

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Desler]

And of course I'm referring to k6mfw. His post was just white-washed nostalgia ignoring the dozens of Constitutional abuses one could lay out.

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[Uberbah]

LOL. During the 60s the CIA, NSA and FBI were flagrantly abusing their powers and authority. Never learned about the Church Committee?

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.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, I don't, but the quote that started this subthread dates in the 60s. Of course, they were doing it in the 50s as well and so on back.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[DRJlaw]

"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

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a racist. how else do you take this:
"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."

and this:
"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."

and this:
"that was back in 20th century when the US had a Constitution and three branches of govt for checks and balances."

  - and insert the subject of racial segregation?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[desdinova 216]

the big bang was over rated

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[CppDeveloper]

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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Because segregation was unconstitutional and the supposed "checks and balances" claimed to be in place seemed to have only noticed the issue 58 years later.

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[DaveV1.0]

And, it is also plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most destructive purposes. Using anonymity to damage a rival's reputation is the later. And, reviewers are not a persecuted group or sect.

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[jythie]

Yeah, but even then it was not a blanket protection against things like libel, slander, fraud, etc. If someone suspects their competition of planting false stories about them, they have always had tools to try to look into it. The question will be, how will this get balanced.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[jythie]

As long as we have had a constitution, people have been saying pretty much the same thing. People tend to forget that we have always had problems with the separation of powers and how to implement the constitution.... and in pretty much every decade you get people talking about how in the past it was respected but today it isn't. Crow, you see such arguments even in the 19th century.

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[jythie]

And, from the original debates, all the 'well of COURSE we didn't mean XYZ!. It should not be surprising that there was so much argument, for instance, about what a 'real' religion was since those were protected while 'fake' ones were not... or who counted as a 'person' ('men' and 'man' were the stand ins for 'person' because non-males legally were not, and thus THEY were only covered by property laws, not constitutional protections).

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Charliemopps]

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.

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[Soluzar]

By saying this you're assuming that the review isn't true? Or should an accurate bad review count as libel?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[TangoMargarine]

I've never been clear on whether the 'fact' that Chewbacca does *not* live on Endor was part of the joke or not.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[plover]

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

[Grishnakh]

How exactly does a friggin' carpet-cleaning business determine that reviews are by "fake" customers? And what kind of carpet-cleaning business maintains a "database" of their customers? Companies like that frequently operate on a cash basis.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[jedidiah]

> And segregation, don't forget segregation.

Only for the first half of the 20th century.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[MoneyT]

And what kind of carpet-cleaning business maintains a "database" of their customers?

Most businesses in the US maintain a database of their customers. At it's simplest form, it's the ledger, which tracks payments in (and what they were for) and payments out (and what they were for). Beyond that, most service businesses are going to maintain records of what their employees were doing on any given day, including where they went and for how long and what the job was.

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[g01d4]

^Thanks. It seems you can remain anonymous and that it's up to the business owner to provide evidence that you couldn't have been a customer. If your negative review was vague, e.g. 'bad service' it would be an impossible burden on the owner - unless he could provably count his customers on one hand.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Personally, I'd like to see those responsible in jail for fraud, but that's not how our currently highly libertarian attitude towards business fraud works these days. I can say, that Yelp has not tolerated this.

All my life I've watched TV commercials with blatant deceptions. I believe tolerating such behavior is very bad for our society, but few seem to agree with me. The first one I remember as a kids was Excedrin with an "extra ingredient" to fight headaches. Why not just say "caffeine" unless the intent is to defraud people? People seem to believe defrauding others for profit is not just acceptable, but ethical.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[mounthood]

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;

Terrible reasoning! What is it if "not an opinion"? We can only speculate that the judge means it's not a valid or protected opinion. A review should NEVER be subject to approval of the person or group being reviewed. That's the whole point of having anonymity: saying what you want regardless of that others think. Besides, you can have bad service or someone *try* to rip you off without being their customer.

If society or business is worried about the financial effects of abuse ... we already have systems to deal with that, and it's the government that decides when speech becomes stock fraud, not private business.

(Nothing in this post should be construed as an endorsement of Yelp.)

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[Unordained]

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.

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[Artifakt]

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.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Unordained]

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

[NatasRevol]

And the NSA if they don't want checks and balances.

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[i kan reed]

> And segregation, don't forget segregation.

Only for the first half of the 20th century.

3/4s but who's counting?

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[k6mfw]

you are a racist. how else do you take this:

It seems many have taken a casual post I did and expanded it way into many other assertions. Geez, lighten' up. But then I guess that's why some people write long dissertations or vague in their posts so they don't get slammed.

Let me add while all you /. complain about govt gathering information and metadata and surveillance, tools like this enable the govt to squash those that challenge The System like MLK Jr. and his staff

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[Obfuscant]

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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That's all well and good. But how is a guy supposed to whip up a click-happy FUD headline out of that?

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That is a really amazing line. That really is truly amazing. That is so amazingly amazing I think I'd like to steal it.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anomalyst]

Corporations ARE the governent. Welcome to America.

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[celle]

" 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 speak. And a civil suit is still a government sponsored response to speech someone doesn't like, a clear violation of the first amendment, libel or not. If business are allowed do this then every business should be nailed for the false advertising they dump on the public all the time. Anonymity has been used for good and bad since before this country was founded and has proven necessary to a free state.

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[Em Adespoton]

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.

That isn't what this ruling is about however -- that would be the following ruling, once the issues of fact are settled (were these people customers, etc). If it is shown that EITHER side acted with malice, there are consequences.

Does anyone have a link to the comments in question on Yelp? Seeing these, we could probably easily figure out whether the statement were indented to damage the business or if they were intended as humour/trolls, or as a response to shady advertising.

From what I've seen so far, it looks like Hadeed suspects a competitor of trying to depress sales of their products using falsehoods.

Oh, and businesses aren't allowed to make false statements of facts... misleading, yes -- but those commercials all have fine print stating that it was a paid endorsement, re-enactment, or other similar thing -- meaning that they've had reviews like this, just not by these people, or straight out admitting that the entire ad is fictional. If similar fine print was added to the yelp comments, they'd probably be covered.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[naughtynaughty]

There is no evidence that they were not customers, he simply claimed he was not able to identify them as customers. As someone who was once sued in Texas by a scummy publicly traded company for my alleged to be defamatory comments I posted online about their pumped up and soon to collapse revenue, I can assure you that companies can and do lie in their assertions to the court. In my case the intent, plain as simple, was to stifle public discussion of the company so investors could continue to be bamboozled by glowing press releases. The case was tossed out of court because they had no jurisdiction over me in Texas so we didn't get to the point of having to prove it was a SLAAP suit with no substance. And the company's stock soon collapsed as it became obvious that they were in fact exactly what I and others were asserting that they were. While I am sympathetic to a company being defamed online, I think we need to give great deference to the right of people to anonymously speak out. There is no even playing field in most cases, companies tend to have more money than the average consumer and if criticism is met with a lawsuit it serves to chill speech to a substantial degree.

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[Belial6]

I don't think it was.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[HornWumpus]

And all cash receipts are reported to the IRS. That's why nobody will ever give you a cash discount.

I'm in charge of disposing of the Brooklyn Bridge. Would you like to buy it?

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[Charliemopps]

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/

Here's one of their commercials, seemingly libeling every other carpet cleaner in the area:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmr3F2bmyyc

Here's some fake customers, and no "Paid actors" warning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KaJugEcSE

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.

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[Bacon Bits]

Defamation laws, as far as I see, only cover the negatives, not the positives.

Defamation covers the negatives. Fraud and false advertising covers the positives. If testimonials or endorsements are made then they are regulated. You can't legally advertise a false testimonial.

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[cold fjord]

...what passes for "left" in this country.

It isn't that they don't exist (CPUSA), but that most Americans aren't interested in that path.

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[fustakrakich]

Speech cannot cause harm. All accusations of libel and slander should be dismissed out of hand. You are accusing a person for another person's possible reaction. Clearly that is wrong.

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[Anonymous Coward]

So reviewers need to practice satire to stay anonymous?

What if the reviewers claim their reviews were just poor satires so they are actually positive?

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[Obfuscant]

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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[Anonymous Coward]

MOD THIS DOWN.

Alright. -1, Overrated okay?

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[MaskedSlacker]

Checks and balances are federal, and there was no federal segregation. Moreover, the federal constitution was still in the process of being extended to apply to the states in the early 20th. It originally did not apply to the states at all.

TLDR: It wasn't unconstitutional at all until the USSC agreed that the new amendments made it unconstitutional.

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[MaskedSlacker]

And as soon as I hit submit I remember that the army was segregated. Disregard me. I should not post before sunrise.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone (including anonymous people) is innocent unless proven guilty; this is how it should work in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." This judge's decision is absolutely disgusting.

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[brainboyz]

I wouldn't say that, the hot little brunette number was explosive.

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[Kazoo the Clown]

It also had J. Edgar, COINTELPRO, Watergate, MkUltra, a bunch of fun stuff that wasn't quite consistent with the Constitution. Sometimes when looking back selective memory gives the impression things were better than they were.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That is exactly how it works in a criminal case. This is a civil suit. The judge's decision seems to be fair. What is disgusting is the general lack of knowledge about basic legal concepts by citizens on which a shit-ton of money has been spent for education.

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[TapeCutter]

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday

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[Anonymous Coward]

The "Fake Customers" in that never said they used him, never said he was good, never made ANY claims about service or product. Just that they Need Hadeed.

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[Anonymous Coward]

in the progress of mankind

Noone cares about that. What about the progress of corporations? Who is funding who here?

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.

That's not true at all. That implies things are not perfect. How does such a view benefit people in power?

Poor corporations, being persecuted by the jealous and greedy.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Less than a decade after "I have lists!" McCarthy hearings either.

Funny thing about McCarthy is that he was correct about many of his accusations.

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[webheaded]

If you do this, NO ONE will want to post there. Just saying. I wouldn't want to post reviews if it required me to reveal my actual identity to the public. Fuck that. There's a reason I don't use my real name as my screen name.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, review says something that has never happened. Obvious. Whether that is true or not is up in the air right now. A lot of businesses are targeting Yelp reviews now. These guys just looked themselves up and found a bunch of bullshit fantasy that never happened. Yelp shouldn't exist. You can complain on whatever forum you want, and if people want reviews they are probably going to google anyways. Having 1 location considered "official" to post reviews at is just begging for trolls. We should be bitching everywhere! De-anonymize that. On 50 different sites...while the users are all behind proxies!

1 more thing. You've gotta be quite the sack of crap to not clean your own carpets. For the price of a cleaning you can just buy a cleaner. Fuckin idiots.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Which means you learned the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything," principle well.

Kudos to your mom.

Here's the thing: if I'm looking for a dry cleaning service, and I look at Yelp, and see 100 glowing, positive reviews from real people who don't all appear to be the owner, versus another company's 2 lukewarm reviews noting that "they don't suck... ALL the time," I'm just as likely to choose the well-reviewed one as I am to avoid a negatively-reviewed one. I don't *care* if they ruined your favorite furry costume - I care about finding someone who will do a good job with my shit - and 100 glowing reviews vs. 2 lukewarm reviews is a pretty easy determination. AND, chances are, I may even KNOW some of the people who left the glowing reviews, and I can say, "oh wow, person X who is my close friend of 30 years really likes this place too - that's a great recommendation!" You don't need to have (or allow) negative reviews for a review site to be useful. And plenty of people are happy to leave positive reviews for places they like.

So, just like your momma used to say: if you don't have anything nice to say, just shut the fuck up.

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[Grishnakh]

1 more thing. You've gotta be quite the sack of crap to not clean your own carpets. For the price of a cleaning you can just buy a cleaner. Fuckin idiots.

Most people don't have their own steam equipment. A serious steam-cleaning service has to have a whole van to hold that, and run a hose from the van into the house; it's not something that can be made portable. A water-based cleaner you can buy at Walmart, which you're probably thinking of, will not clean a carpet the way steam-cleaning does. I don't know if the company in question is a steam-cleaning service, but if you're going to hire a service to clean carpets, make sure to use a steam-cleaning service.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, that's right. Nobody can subpoena records during the fact-finding and investigatory part of a case! Let's tell the police that they have to presume everybody is innocent and refrain from ever investigating anything, unless they witness it with their own two eyes, and happen to have a camera pointed at it, too!

Fucking idiot.

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[Anonymous Coward]

What is it if "not an opinion"

When your "opinion" contains false factual claims, we tend to call it a "lie." That's why it is, you know... not an opinion.

Your free speech does not give you the right to commit libel and slander against people. Your right to anonymous free speech does not give you those rights, either. If you are "lying" about a person, then you are not stating an "opinion," you are "making malicious statements you know to be false in an attempt to damage the reputation of the person you are lying about."

You have opinions about facts - you don't get to make up facts and call it an opinion.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[The Wild Norseman]

It was a state court that issued the ruling under Virginia law, not a Federal court under Federal law. The US Federal government still has a Constitution and three branches of government for checks and balances.

And Virginia doesn't?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[cold fjord]

The Federal government was the subject of the post that I replied to. Would you like me to comment on Virginia as well?

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's some fake customers, and no "Paid actors" warning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KaJugEcSE

The man in the video is not an actor. He is identified at the start of the video. Bruce Boudreau is the current head coach of the NHL's Anaheim Ducks. He coached the Washington Capitals (Hadeed is in the DC area) from '07-'11.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Cito]

Another favorite quote of mine...

"True freedom of speech, even offensive, is achieved in it's greatest form in anonymity." - Anonymous

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[i kan reed]

Funny how it clearly didn't matter at all.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC since I have friends who have business ties to Hadeed.

For those of you not in the Washington, DC area, Hadeed runs a seemingly huge rug cleaning operation. They advertize very heavily on the radio (several times an hour on the news/traffic station with professional ad actors) and advertize every week in the Washington Post ads supplement. In addition, I get at least one ad from them in my junk mail a week. I've never done business with them. My general experience with businesses that advertize to the same extent as them is that they're not very good or they would be able to thrive off 1/10 of the ads and customer referrals. My experience with "the big boys" who appear large and advertize heavily is they're usually very expensive, very pushy, and not very good.

Re: Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

actually there are portable ones. my buddy built one into his truck that also detaches so he can take it on site anywhere. it's also industrial grade heavy duty. took em 3 months to build it tho

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the left became right. Then they started persecuting the "right" who believe in limited government and a smaller state.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

In the beginning the universe was created. This has been widely regarded as a Bad Move.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Sabriel]

Fire!

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[fredprado]

You are right, but it got considerably worse since then...

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Uberbah]

Until the left became right.

Until you started confusing actual political stances for party labels.

Then they started persecuting the "right" who believe in limited government and a smaller state.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Very nice. Nothing like good ./ comments to make me smile and laugh. Thanks. :)

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

The US legal profession will fight viciously against the idea of permitting or protecting anonymous comments, because unethical practices have been enshrined into the US legal system for decades -- practices that work to the benefit of the legal profession and do tremendous harm to society. This is only possible because the public is generally clueless about ethics issues, and easily distracted by party politics.

We can draw a parallel between what is happening now, and the situation in the post-Civil War South, where everybody with a functioning brain realized that the "separate-but-not-actually-equal" system was legally, ethically, and morally wrong, but the legal profession found it convenient to do nothing about it.

Like a slumbering giant, the public is unaware of this poison destroying the legal system from within, but has the ability to force reform on a massive scale should it someday wake up.

While there may be a few ethical lawyers out there, it is quite apparent the legal profession as a whole does not want anybody to be in a position to threaten the gravy train. Letting the public have the freedom to make anonymous comments is perceived as a threat to the profession. On Slashdot, for example, a number of anonymous commentators pointed out that the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, leading to his death, was unethical practice of law. Every time something like this happens there is a danger that the slumbering giant will wake up, realize how much of a screwed up mess the legal system is, and decide to do something about it.

It is clear from the comments made by some of the legal professionals on this topic that they want to put a stop to this kind of thing, and this case is merely being used as a first step in that process. Expect the precedent set here to be warped into something terrible.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Defamation laws, as far as I see, only cover the negatives, not the positives.

Defamation covers the negatives. Fraud and false advertising covers the positives. If testimonials or endorsements are made then they are regulated. You can't legally advertise a false testimonial.

But you can sure advertise a heavily edited version of the testimonial spoken by an actor! Oh how I love and hate advertising.

Re: Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[jbee02]

This is a significantly different scenario. We're not talking protestors of an oppressive government, we're talking about reviews of commercially sold products. reviews that are supposed to help consumers make educated decisions when spending their hard earn money. How are they supposed to do that if they cant even confirm if a review is from a legitimate customer or a competitive company.

Re:Appropriate Supreme Court Quote

[strikethree]

Wow. This comment really threw me for a loop. Very impressive and insightful. You are exactly correct: If the business can invent customers for positive advertising, why can't the public or competitors invent customers for negative advertising?

Hm.

Even weirder, your comment was +4 when I first viewed it but it is now only +3. WTF? Wish I had mod points because I do not really have anything to add and would rather have modded you than replied.

And thus ends Yelp.

[Kenja]

Since the whole point is to give unbiased feed back and the chance of repercussions by definition creates a bias, that's more or less the end of that.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[i kan reed]

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.

[wiredlogic]

The whole point of Yelp is to collect negative reviews so they can get paid to remove them.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Threni]

Not everyone agrees:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-08/yelp-reaches-record-as-jpmorgan-says-ad-growth-will-lift-shares.html

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Kenja]

Right, and since now posting negative reviews can get you sued, what will happen?

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yelp was always full of shit, as were online download things like download.com reviews.

Even ignoring rampant review fraud, positive and negative, people are far more likely to bitch over problems than praise, letting a few percent of unhappy establish "terrible service" as the review norm.

In this case, the judge was satisfied with evidence the reviews were fake (a different point to argue), and protection does not apply as in any other case offline.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the absolute truth!

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

by the way, I realize the irony in my anonymous post.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[geekoid]

I have found yelp to be extremely accurate. I have never gone to anyplace with high marks on yelp and regretted it.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[mythosaz]

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.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[mindwhip]

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.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[DaveV1.0]

Anonymity creates a bias for biased bad reviews, especially from competitors, shills paid by competitors, people who didn't get their way when said people were wrong, and griefers.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[mcgrew]

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:

The Virginia Court of Appeals agreed this week, ruling that the comments were not protected First Amendment opinions if the Yelp users were not customers and thus were making false claims.

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.

[geekoid]

Have you only gone to places with low marks and not regretted?

What you are saying isn't the opposite of what I said. In fact it's complete nonsense.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Bert64]

But consider it from another perspective, how can you trust a review if you aren't sure who the reviewer is, if they really exist and if they've ever actually used the service they're writing the review about?
Business owners have been known to post large numbers of false positive reviews about their own establishments.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Bert64]

And what about the positive reviews? The same criteria should apply to those, find out who wrote them and verify their validity...

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking.

From the post you replied to:

I have never gone to anyplace because of high marks on yelp and never regretted it.

Pay attention to the bolded word and reflect on how it affects the meaning of the sentence. The parent is saying that they have never gone to a place just because of high marks on yelp, not that they have not gone to places that happen to have high marks on yelp. The parent simply probably does not use Yelp at all.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[suutar]

Nah, it makes sense. It comes out, roughly, to "I do not regret ignoring high yelp ratings when deciding where to go"

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[celle]

"Anonymity creates a bias for biased bad reviews, "

    It also creates a bias for good reviews. Want proof just look at amazon, ebay, and newegg etc. ah hell even slashdot some time. Businesses have been nailed for paying for false reviews, good or bad.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never gone to Yelp, and thus far I haven't regretted that either.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[retchdog]

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.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[HornWumpus]

To say nothing of the basic nature of 'Yelp' and 'Angie's List' as extortionists.

They won't remove bad reviews for paying businesses, but they will get them off the first page of results, where 90% of traffic stops.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[YumoolaJohn]

But consider it from another perspective

That perspective is utterly worthless; freedom and privacy are what's important. The fact that such a thing could be abused doesn't mean that anonymity shouldn't be allowed in such cases. Now all you have to do is accuse anonymous reviewers of not being customers to remove what little anonymity they have.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[triffid_98]

Designed around Web 2.0 and Extortion 4.0? Yep, that would be Yelp in a nutshell.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed. How do you know that ?

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that lying in these cases could be libel. Buuuuuut...
What about the fact that I don't have to own a product to know it's crap? Care to comment on that? Like those stupid motorized rotating hair brushes. THAT'S BULLSHIT. You know it's bad just from the description.
Like, can I go online and give every McDonald's a bad review just because I ate at one and the food is crap and they all the same food so they all suck?
How about psychics? They just lie to you and you pay them for it! How does that fit in? Can I write a bad review of a psychic I never visited because I already know it's impossible to predict the future. Can I call them crazy for talking to ghosts in the review? What if I DID see them do it even if I didn't pay them to?

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[cgimusic]

By "in the clear" you just mean legally. The business owner now knows exactly who you are. What happens if they try and get revenge on you?

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no 1st amendment right to spread lies about me.

The first amendment lists no such exception.

Re:And thus ends Yelp.

[mcgrew]

What happens if they try and get revenge on you?

How? I can cause a business far more damage than a business can cause me. A business owner would be a fool to start a fight like that.

Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not have the right to not identify yourself.

America is rapidly ceasing to be free in all meaningful sense of the word.

Oh, sure, you can act like you're free. But the reality is, you are rapidly becoming a police state.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not have the right to not identify yourself.

America is rapidly ceasing to be free in all meaningful sense of the word.

Oh, sure, you can act like you're free. But the reality is, you are a police state.

FTFY

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was libel ever covered under American freedoms? I know getting all emo and moaning about loss of freedoms gets lots of praise and upvotes on the internet, you might want to take a step back and analyse the situation first.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Police state with the laws openly written and submitted by the corporations.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fap fap fap. DAE think that America is a Police State!!! Fap fap fap.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[jedidiah]

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.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[suutar]

depends whether the general populace will see "making sure these revewers were actually customers" as an attack. (or even know it happened...)

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Johann Lau]

Yeah yeah, fantasizing about the motivations of the precious few who do give a fuck because you're too weak to; that's such a new concept, and not unintentionally ironic at all.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[westlake]

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,

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was libel ever covered under American freedoms?

There is no proof that it was libel. The only reason they're trying to identify them is because they have no idea if they're really customers.

So that's a straw man. No one is saying that libel is covered under American freedoms (I would, but that's another story.). I would say they shouldn't be able to identify these people without cause. And no, checking their innocence is not a good reason.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[YumoolaJohn]

Were you trying to make a joke? It looks like it to me.

Re:Papers please comrade ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This company clearly deserves to die in a fire of it's own creation.

It's = it is.

Its = possessive.

You cannot call yourself an educated man until you know the difference between the two, above.

Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to enforce an anti-anonymity ruling against 4Chan would be worth tons of popcorn!

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[lordmetroid]

I would love to see that. Care to share some of that popcorn or do I have to make my own?

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[Tanktalus]

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.

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[Runaway1956]

I was hoping that you would make enough popcorn to share. AC is selfish, and I'm lazy. Can I haz popcorn, please?

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[AJH16]

Not that hard, simply sue (or more directly, convict) the guys that run the server until they are compliant or out of business.

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[nitehawk214]

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.

Re:Yelp? They should have ruled against 4Chan!

[i kan reed]

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.

Waiting to review

[MiniMike]

Is there a place on Yelp to review the Virginia Court of Appeals?

Re:Waiting to review

[i kan reed]

Virginia state penitentiary, of course.

Re:Waiting to review

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if someone is planning to bomb the state of Virginia.

Re:Waiting to review

[tomhath]

More importantly, is there a place on Yelp to review Yelp?

Re:Waiting to review

[plover]

+++++ 5 bars, will no doubt be asked to stay again.

Re:Waiting to review

[LoRdTAW]

+++++ 5 bars .... Oh if I only had some mod points.

Re:Waiting to review

[HornWumpus]

Yes. But Yelp is paying Yelp. So any negative reviews go to page 72 of the results.

Re:Waiting to review

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a place on Yelp to review the Virginia Court of Appeals?

There is a site called RobeProbe where you can submit reviews for judges.

1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[natarnsco]

I bet Mr. Hadeed would have been better off ignoring the comments, or offer discounts for positive reviews to outweigh the negatives. Streisand Effect and all.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[hubie]

I have no experience to speak for his company, but he has a pretty catchy jingle on the radio.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless it turns out that the reviews were all from a competitor. Free publicity and the only lost business is from a few people who don't understand that libel laws aren't the end of online anonymity.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[thejesses]

And REALLY cheesy commercials with John Carlson.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was just thinking that. I hear this company's commercial all the time on WTOP. The jingle is catchy.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[hubie]

If you stand on it, we'll stand behind it!

:)

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[YumoolaJohn]

The first amendment says *nothing* about libel being an exception. Furthermore, they needed to identify these people because they weren't sure if they were customers, and how is that just? They can just strip someone of anonymity to check their innocence? Something seems wrong about this picture.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The first amendment doesn't say anything about anonymity, either. *shrugs*

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[YumoolaJohn]

The constitution doesn't give the government the power to strip people of their anonymity, either. Learn to understand the constitution.

Furthermore, punishing people because of their speech (what data they chose to send or not send) is a violation of the right to free speech. Punishing people for being anonymous would violate freedom of speech because you'd be punishing them for how they chose to send their message.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[YumoolaJohn]

There's also the fact that people should be innocent unless proven guilty, and they shouldn't be able to force website owners to hand over information on users based on suspicion.

Re:1st Amendment doesn't protect libel, but...

[cgimusic]

Paying people (in the form of discounts) for good reviews really isn't much better.

Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what compensation do those customers get for having their information forcibly leaked to their carpet cleaning company if they are real customers? Oh, none? Yay America. Monetary damages are reserved for business.

Re:Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay America. Monetary damages are reserved for business.

And the more money you have, the more speech you're entitled to, because money==speech.

Re:Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, what compensation does Mr. Hadeed get from a libel suit when it turns out that those anonymous commentators are competitors slinging dirt? Yay Slashdot dipshit. Exposing your passionate ignorance built up on the slimmest evidence or understanding.

Re: Oh yeah?

[LocalH]

It goes both ways. If they turn out to be actual customers, then Hadeed owes them. If they turn out to be competitors, or just random people shitting on Hadeed's company, then they owe him.

Re:Oh yeah?

[cgimusic]

What's your point? If they are indeed fake customers, I bet Mr. Hadeed gets a lot of money from his libel suit. If they are real customers I expect they will get fuck all.

negative feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

and what about people giving _positive_ feedback?

(think corporate shill sockpuppets)

Re:negative feedback?

[SJHillman]

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

Re:negative feedback?

[hubie]

Years ago there was someone around here who used to love to argue and there would be these long tangent threads on whatever subject. He used to post anonymously and give supporting opinions. He got busted for it because he forgot to click the post anonymous on one of his posts, which went something like "I think Mr. Smith makes a great point ..." It was pretty hilarious because he then went off trying to deny regularly doing that. I used to have that comment thread bookmarked on an old computer.

Re:negative feedback?

[HornWumpus]

Sockpuppets on /.

Perish the thought.

Re:negative feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

This place is astroturf central. When astroturfing was invented, they came here first and honed their skills on us users back in the 90's. We can tell the difference between an astroturfer, paid shill and an ignorant fanboi in the blink of an eye. There are *tons* of sock-puppet accounts posting every day. Doesn't matter much since /. went commercial. Now the site itself is a shill.

The door swings both ways

[Rik Sweeney]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:The door swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 3 actual ratings for all online rating systems:

5 stars - Only one person has rated this item (probably the person selling it)
4 stars - This item might not be worse than a poke with a sharp stick. Beyond that, you are on your own.
0-3 stars - Stay away. Any item that can't pull 4 stars is likely to be hazardous to your health.

Re:The door swings both ways

[SJHillman]

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.

Re:The door swings both ways

[mythosaz]

Going to hell for this, but +1 Funny.

Re:The door swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot, "I don't own this, but it is so amazing! 5/5" and "I'd never buy this piece of crap, lol! 0/5"

Re:The door swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

"I had a bad experience with Company Y 3 years ago. The item was less than perfect (although usable). I'm giving this newly release product 1 star because of my bad experience with the company back then" 1/5

Re:The door swings both ways

[GuB-42]

You forgot the obligatory xkcd link.
Here it is : http://xkcd.com/1098/

Re:The door swings both ways

[LoRdTAW]

Wow. I cant stop laughing.

Re:The door swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened on the 9th of november 2001 ??

Another one bites the dust

[Kardos]

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.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[SirGarlon]

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.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[geekoid]

You should read the court ruling. In short, if some one posts a lie, and the company can show that it is likely to be a lie, then Yelp my have to divulge the information about the anon reviewer.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Kardos]

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 over a ruined $15 pizza that I'm willing to take on all of that? Probably not - so the negative review doesn't get posted - and Yelp ends up with only stellar or near stellar reviews.

I can kind of see it

[Chirs]

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.

Re:I can kind of see it

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm a small business owner, I don't want my competitors to be submitting fake negative reviews against me.

Are you OK with your competitors submitting or causing to be submitted, fake positive reviews for themselves, so that you have two honest positive reviews, and they have 7 fake positive reviews?

Re:I can kind of see it

[SJHillman]

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

[schneidafunk]

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.

Re:I can kind of see it

[Anonymous Coward]

the NSA

Re:I can kind of see it

[Monoman]

This.

It is all or nothing.

Re:I can kind of see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid shills already have multiple personas. Large corporations have them, as do local small businesses. Self-selection reviews have never been accurate, which is why real research costs a lot of money.

Re:I can kind of see it

[LoRdTAW]

Its a double edged sword. (TL;DR: anon reviews are crap. Go to your local government agency that regulates said business for a better review, by inspectors.)

On one side you have the ability to voice your opinion about a business or product. Maybe I really liked your pizza or that death ray I bought vaporized my neighbors noisy kids without a trace, 5 stars! Or maybe your establishment looks like it hasn't been cleaned since it opened in 1984 and saw your cook picking his nose while he was cooking (I actually saw this in a Chinese restaurant by me a few years back, never ate there again), 1 star. Those things are worthy of an honest review.

On the other side its an invitation for abuse. I know of a business who had a former disgruntled employee leave a string of negative feedback on Google. A local pizza place by me had a one star review on yelp that read "Walked in and the food looked like it was sitting out all day. turned around and walked out". Seriously? How did that person know that it was sitting out all day? They left a purely subjective opinion not based on anything which impacts the establishments reputation.

You know what the best review site is? Your local Health department. They may have a website that lists violations of local food establishments. The best example was a pizza joint around the corner from me. They blocked out their windows and hung a sign that read "Closed for renovation, We will reopen bla bla bla." Okay so I start looking up the number for another nearby pizza place and stumble onto the health department's website violation listing for the place I was looking for. The violations weren't bad, mostly citations for inadequate lighting and cracked tiles. I got curious and checked the rating for the closed for renovation pizza joint. WTF. Turns out they weren't closed for renovation, they were closed by the department of health for a laundry list of violations including disgusting ones like mice droppings on food and cockroaches in the kitchen. I never went back there again (not the one from my previous anecdote). In New York City they have a health department rating system that forces a food establishment to post a letter grade rating in their front window for everyone to see. You have a clean kitchen and follow proper procedures for food prep - you get an A. Then there is B and C. Beyond that you are forced to close. Nasty pizza is still open and has a B rating.

If you are a contractor and you screw up my rugs then I call the department of consumer affairs who most likely issued you your business license. This might not work in all parts of the country or world but try to go to your local government agency who regulates the business or establishment. Much more effective as they can levy fines, liens or revoke licenses. That will scare an owner more than a hundred one star yelp reviews as the consequences are much more real.

I never use Yelp or any other rating service for food. If I don't like your food I won't order from you again. Maybe I don't like the way you cook it but everyone else does. That means you stay in business. If your food is genuinely crap then no one eats/orders from your establishment. And that means you go out of business. And that is the way it's supposed to work.

(PS)
By no means are government ratings free of corruption, bribery or an inspector with a grudge but they are quite often much more revealing about the quality of a buisness than someones pointless opinion.

Re:I can kind of see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, chicken-fucker.

1 guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone know's 4chan is just 1 guy though...

Re:1 guy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that 4 Chan is one guy and a bout a thousand FBI informants. /b/ is about a thousand FBI informants and no guys.

Re:1 guy

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely 2 guys 1 cup

rant as though the moms were watching

[Anonymous Coward]

free the innocent stem cells. poor service to be replaced by serving each other after shooting stops? advocate for POT (Personal Open Terminal) keep us on the up & up. (;^)-)-|

Re:rant as though the moms were watching

[Anonymous Coward]

I dare you to make less sense.

Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Rik Sweeney]

Oh, the irony!

Re: Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Email directly to the computer that you have a login to. You can log in at one of the terminals in either of the two terminal rooms on campus: the one on the second floor of the science building, or the one in the basement of the social sciences building.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[SJHillman]

...so said the Anonymous Coward

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a terrible landlord that you're trying to move away from, they have $2000 of your money hiding away as your deposit, and it will be another 6 months before your lease is up, but you want to warn people to stay away, do you REALLY want to have them raise your prices in the interim, vandalize your place after you leave, and then SUE YOU for damages because you wanted to help others avoid the same fate you did? Enjoy losing $5,000 because the judge James Steele of the Los Angeles Court of Appeals had no intention of watching the video you took of the house, spotless, as you left it, but just said "I really don't feel like doing this today, so I'm going to side with the landlord. You should have thought about having someone sue you for $5,000 under perjurous circumstances BEFORE you had a baby last month!"

Me neither, and I wouldn't wish such a disaster on anyone else... except for one of my former landlords, obviously. May she be suspected of terrorism and rot in Guantanamo without trial for the rest of her wicked life.

Re: Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. You vandalized the house after you took that video and you figured you could get away with it because you thought the video proved anything.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Humor ---------> *WHOOSH* ------->

                        Your Head.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

I thinks it's terrible that that happened to you, but on the flip side, what's to keep someone from making a video of the pristine house, then going back in and trashing it. The only real remedy would be to get the landlord to sign an affidavit after you move out that states the place was in good condition, but good luck getting a landlord to do that.

Re: Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Right... Good idea. Let's see that logical train of thought:

I just had a baby, and I'm moving so I'm definitely going to need that $2,000 deposit back in order to support my young family... as roughly $100-per-day as anything left in the month if the landlord can move someone in before the month's end, so what should I do?

A) Trash the house!
B) Leave the house in as good as shape as possible in the hopes that I get $2,000 back that can go toward medical bills and the deposit on the next place!

Oh, by all accounts, the first answer is most obviously the choice any sane person would choose.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, he should be modded "funny". Even funnier is his trying to look educated and sophisticated by misusing "whom".

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[asylumx]

I think (or hope) that's the whole point of his post, and is why it's marked +5 Funny.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly enough I did work(see the word "Did") for a company that did and maybe still does post negative reviews for its competitors. The more they bid against the company in ad words the more negative reviews they got.

I know it is done on a daily basis by hundreds if not thousands of companies, not only in yelp but a lot of other review boards too. And it is all done by setting proxies first.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[HornWumpus]

You don't give the landlord the keys until (s)he does an on-camera walk through.

You wright that into the lease before you sign it. If the landlord refuses such a reasonable term you know (s)he was just planning on keeping the deposit. Don't sign. There are generally many more rentals available.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[newcastlejon]

You don't need anything as elaborate as a video. When you move in to a leasehold you take inventory and note any damage or other problems with the property then have both parties sign off on it. When you move out you go through the inventory with the landlord present and sign off again before you hand over the keys.

I've found this works very well with letting agencies, who are apparently the only group of professionals* who will try harder to swindle you than estate agents.

*I use the term advisedly, since there's essentially no accreditation required to become one.

Re:Chicken Sh*ts

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the whoosh...

FTG

[AndyKron]

that' bullshit, and everybody knows it.

Escrow of sorts

[gumpish]

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.)

Re:Escrow of sorts

[medv4380]

I seem to recall a right somewhere.. what was it... Something about the right to confront ones own accusers. Must be some communist or European thing.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[Anonymous Coward]

A critical post on the internet is not the same thing as a criminal accusation.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[broken_chaos]

Pretty sure that only applies in cases where the accusers are the ones pressing charges. Considering this is the exact reverse...

Re:Escrow of sorts

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did Yelp become a court of law sitting in criminal jurisdiction?

When an online review can by itself result in the imprisonment of business owners, then you can start talking about the Sixth Amendment.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[KZigurs]

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.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[plover]

That's not uncommon. Instead of providing the data to the business, it could be provided to an outside expert who agrees not to reveal the true identities unless they turn up to not be customers. Yelp would have to pay for it, of course.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[bstuff]

Usually it is marked as attorney's eyes only under a protective order. The attorneys are not allowed to disclose it to their client, but can compare the client information with the attorney's eyes only information.
If the information goes beyond the attorneys, then the attorneys get in trouble. See the Apple v. Samsung case for example.
See, e.g., CNN at http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/03/apple-samsung-sanctions-grewal/

Re:Escrow of sorts

[medv4380]

If it was just random peoples opinions then there wouldn't be much of a problem. But Yelp is serving a function as a Mob Ruled Psudo Court. They only go after business, and punishment is served by the mob choosing not to frequent a business based on the testimony of anonymous users. Your suggestion that the comments could actually be Yelp itself only reinforces the reasoning behind the 6th amendment in the first place.

Re:Escrow of sorts

[cgimusic]

Could have Yelp hash the names of the reviewers and have Mr. Hadeed hash the names of his customers then the judge could compare the list of hashes. Ok, it's not perfect but it could eliminate some of the legitimate reviews from further scrutiny.

Online Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

1. People are way too nice, to begin with.

2. Nobody questions the 5 star reviews. Amazon's 5 star reviews are loaded with shills.

3. The web is loaded with "Reputation Mangers" who post phony 5 star reviews.

4. Yelp will have to indemnify me before I am willing to post.

5.

If “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” and not subject to First Amendment protection, the opinion stated.

That's all fine and well, but that does me no good when some business who didn't do right by me sues me and buries me in legal bills. And the fact that I'd have to cough up a $15,000 retainer just to defend myself from speaking the truth.

6. Lastly, many shitty reviews can be avoided if business didn't give its customers the run around or just plain ignore them when they try to rectify the issue.

Sure there are unfair and unreasonable customers but those are easily weeded out - they are the ones who post without facts and resort to name calling.

The future of online reviews?

[PhxBlue]

Maybe in the future, all we'll see in online reviews is, "Fast, neat, average, friendly, good, good."

The court could protect the reviewers privacy and

[Registered Coward v2]

still determine if the are real or not. Have Hadeed turn over his database to Yelp's lawyers and let them match the reviewers. For those that don't match then Yelp turns over the names. This wouldn't be much different then when a court allows discovery but places safeguards in place to ensure only truly relevant information is revealed. That way, fake reviews are unmasked and Hadeed can decide if he wants to take action against them.

Skynet

[Anonymous Coward]

4chan run's itself.

Re:Skynet

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Skynet

[fisted]

4chan run's it'self.

FTFY

Online sights should

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

They should publish the IP address for all posts along with their email address. They could put the email address on a image to prevent spam harvesters.

Re:Online sights should

[PPH]

Lets see:

Anonymous e-mail account. Check.
Post from open WiFi at Starbucks: Check.

Re:Online sights should

[geekoid]

Yeah, that will work~

Re:Online sights should

[Anonymous Coward]

I notice that you made this post with your Slashdot account settings set to hide your email address.

all positive reviews are fake

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are smart you ignore those and just look at negatives, and its pretty easy to determine if a negative one is a shill

That carpet cleaning service sucks !

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Sarah Palin and this message has been paid for
by the people who stained my carpet while giving me
contributions.

By the way, I am free next Saturday and I'll buy the champagne this time.

Frost pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

Frostpissed

LeCarre taught me about cut-outs

[paiute]

Who said that Yelp knows who I really am?

Re:LeCarre taught me about cut-outs

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced design assistance to help the capital cities of Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington develop designs for greener, healthier, more vibrant neighborhoods. The designs will provide models for the growing number of communities interested in sustainable designs that improve the environment, strengthen local economies, and protect people’s health. The cities, which were selected through a national competition, are:

- Lansing, Mich. will receive assistance to develop options for transforming a 14-acre parking lot between the state capitol and Hall of Justice into a public park that showcases green infrastructure and renewable energy technologies. The design assistance aims to help reduce combined sewer overflows, prevent flooding, reduce the heat island effect, beautify public spaces near major civic buildings, and connect pedestrian walkways and transit to community and state institutions.

- Madison, Wis. will receive assistance to explore ways to make pedestrian and bicycle improvements and add green infrastructure, such as trees and rain gardens, to streets in the Triangle Neighborhood. The project aims to make it easier for residents to access nearby transit, open spaces, and the Monona Bay, and also improve water quality in the bay.

- Olympia, Wash. will receive assistance to incorporate green infrastructure along Capitol Way to reduce stormwater runoff, improve access to businesses and the waterfront, and adapt to climate change. The project aims to strengthen connections between the capitol campus and downtown, encouraging people to walk and bike to shops and restaurants.

This is the fourth year of the Greening America’s Capitals program. To date, 15 capital cities have received assistance, including Boston; Charleston, W.Va.; Hartford, Conn.; Jefferson City, Mo.; Little Rock, Ark.; Jackson, Miss.; Lincoln, Neb.; Montgomery, Ala.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Washington; Baton Rouge, La.; Des Moines, Iowa; Frankfort, Ky.; Helena, Mont.; and Indianapolis, Ind.

EPA recently posted reports for Baton Rouge, Des Moines, Frankfort, Helena, and Indianapolis. EPA assistance will help the cities pursue green infrastructure, more walkable streets and other amenities. View design options for each city at http://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov/sets/72157633206541248/

Greening America's Capitals is an EPA program conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The partnership is helping communities across the country create more housing and transportation choices, reinforce existing investments, and support vibrant and healthy neighborhoods that attract businesses.

More information on Greening America’s Capitals and a link to the reports:
http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/greencapitals.htm

More information on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities:
http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov

I am a consumer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I ignore glowing reviews because I think they are shills, "Reputation Managers" - paid liars or people who don't know any better.

And frankly, I like being anonymous because Mr Business, if you didn't like my review - regardless of its merits - you could force me to remove it because I don't have $15,000 for a legal retainer to defend myself from a lawsuit.

Does anyone here remember Pets Present (IIRC) from the 90s? The sued EVERYONE who left a negative review.

Some of the Slashdot crowd coughed up thousands of dollars just to settle.

Standard Word of Mouth

[Paul Pierce]

So with this precedence would the judge rule it illegal if I 'heard' that one brand of tractor was better than another but couldn't remember the exact source?

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

[pla]

people leaving negative feedback for a carpet cleaning service are not allowed to remain anonymous. Yelp must unmask seven critics to the carpet cleaner

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!"

Re:Let me know how that works for ya

[Anonymous Coward]

That presumes Yelp actually knows their real identity

No, it presumes that Yelp has the IP addresses that were used to post the reviews, which is true.

Re:Let me know how that works for ya

[pla]

An IP address is not a Social Security number or a fingerprint. It, in the words of Judge Gary Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, "provides only the location at which one of any number of computer devices may be deployed, much like a telephone number can be used for any number of telephones.".

Re:Let me know how that works for ya

[Anonymous Coward]

So...you agree with what I said, then. Okay.

Re:Let me know how that works for ya

[turning in circles]

Yelp know who I am. Yelp is installed on my Android phone and I can't take it off (without hacking the phone), so Yelp surely knows everything about me. Yelp could hand over that information. I don't see a problem with the judge seeing the information, or even the carpet-cleaner that receives the complaints, but I can understand not wanting the whole world knowing where I get my carpets cleaned, or where I go on vacation etc.

Limited disclosure seems a fair tradeoff, and Yelp (or any other site that publishes reviews) should set their systems accordingly so people who do submit reviews know ahead of time who will be able to identify them and for what reason - and this in turn keeps reviewers honest.

How About Protecting Consumers

[organgtool]

The judge seems very worried about protecting businesses from false negative reviews but how about protecting consumers from false positive reviews? Does this mean that shills are required to use their real names as well (at least in Virginia)?

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Do you want judges just to start making laws on their own and then enforcing them? Find some consumers who were damaged by positive reviews and therefore have standing to sue and the case could go the other way.

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well obviously you'd need to take a case to court on that to be sure. This case is about possibly fake negative reviews. There have been instances (in New York) of companies getting in trouble (and having to pay fines) for astro-turfing or paying a-holes (reputation managers) to astro-turf for them. But in Virginia? You'd need a case to go to trial to find out...

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

Judges tend to be concerned about the cases before them, rather than cases no one has filed.

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[pr0fessor]

The problem is that consumers can't afford to go to court over what they believe may be a fake positive review, it's up to the review site to attempt to keep fake reviews off.

We all know that an angry customer will be louder than a happy customer. Most people if they go to a restaurant and have a good breakfast they might tell a coworker to try it and quickly forget but if it is bad they will tell everyone for days.

If I see a product with a boatload of positive reviews I usually assume there is something fishy going on.

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[Solandri]

Essentially they are one and the same. Anonymity helps hide both false negatives and false positives. The main distinguishing factor (from a legal standpoint) is that the injured party in one case (the business) suffers tangible harm (loses business) due to statistical averaging (dozens or hundreds of customers may avoid the business, resulting in a real, measurable drop in revenue). In the other case the injured party (the customer) suffers intangible harm (doesn't get what he expected) due to there being no averaging (only visits the one establishment).

Or put another way, false negatives concentrate their negative impact onto a single business. False positives spread out their negative impact across multiple customers. Both are wrong, but the latter type is just harder to find, enforce, and punish because its effect is distributed. It's the reason spam still persists. It's not because the judge wants to protect businesses but not customers.

You could make an argument that multiple false positives result in a tangible harm to any individual customer. But to prosecute that you'd have to show that it's the same person/people making the false positive reviews. Whereas in the business case a single false negative review can drive away multiple customers. That opens up the temptation to sue Yelp for allowing the false positive reviews in the first place. But that's too close to shooting the messenger for me to feel comfortable doing.

Re:How About Protecting Consumers

[YumoolaJohn]

is that the injured party in one case (the business) suffers tangible harm (loses business)

Where is this tangible harm, and can they prove it? This is ridiculous. They never *had* that business or money to begin with. Money that you could've had was not yours to begin with; you lost nothing.

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is yelp supposed to unmask a negative review?

Ok, I'm Joe the Butcher and a New competitor open up the street from me I jump on yelp and submit reviews like "bad meat" "short weight?"

1. Using home computer, Yelp captures Ip address tracks it back to my ISP, gets a court order and gets my details from my ISP

2. Using Home computer, I buy an overseas VPN in a country that dosn't like the US (or wherever you are), Post reviews, yelp has no trail to follow

3. I goto a local cybercafe, post a review, goto next cafe and so on. Yelp has no trail to follow

4. I find an unsecured wifi access point, post reviews. Yelp has no trail to follow.

I don't see how this could be enforced, unless they plan on prosecuting the ISP's

Re:How?

[Whorhay]

I would think that logically once it is established that the poster of a possibly libelous review can't be identified, that the next step would be to request the review be taken down. If Yelp then refused to take it down they could be sued for libel themselves.

Do not fuck with the corporate overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

You may now approach and grope the ass of CEO.

Shill Reviews

[Jason Levine]

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:

The Virginia Court of Appeals agreed this week, ruling that the comments were not protected First Amendment opinions if the Yelp users were not customers and thus were making false claims.

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!)

Re:Shill Reviews

[Bite The Pillow]

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. I find those trustworthy, and frequently consult amazon before buying in a physical store.
Some business is more difficult to verify. But, just as receipts hold links to surveys for free items, they could hold a verified purchase token. This is not likely to spring up overnight, but there are solutions.
Most people are skeptical if online reviews, but read them anyway. I see no reason to instill trust in those rare instances where the proprietor fights back, and leave the rest dubious. The solution is both differentiating verified reviews, and shaming sites that host unverified reviews.
Verified reviews can be gamed by actually buying or visiting, so there is no perfect fix. Which is all the more reason to leave all reviews suspect. Which means there is no incentive to make false reviews any less legal than they are. QED.

Re:Shill Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Yelp and the other businesses could co-operate to create a more reliable system to ensure that only real customers can leave reviews. Still doesn't help against abuse by a competitor or prankster, but it's better than opening the floodgates to spammers half a world away.

For example, the customer receives a friendly message on their receipt encouraging to leave constructive feedback online, using a code printed on that same receipt. This is similar to how free wireless access works in many places.

Another way is to accept a review only if the browser request came from an IP or range used by the restaurant's wireless access point, but that may not be very feasible as many people now have their own mobile connections.

Of course both these measures require quite a bit of sincere co-operation between physical businesses and the review site so it will probably never happen.

Re:Shill Reviews

[DaveV1.0]

Saying a business sucks by stating falsely that one has used the business and it sucked while in truth one does not like the owner donating money to a political campaign is a lie and libelous.

Saying simply that the business sucks without stating the reason you believe it sucks is the political leanings of the owner is a lie. You don't think the business sucks, you think the owner sucks and are attempting to hurt the owner financially for exercising his right to free speech and association. That is both immoral and unethical.

Either way, it is a lie and you are a liar.

Re:Shill Reviews

[plover]

The libel laws state that you have to have a falsehood, but there are gray areas surrounding opinions. Posting "Joe's Carpets sucks, 1/5 stars" is pretty much an opinion, and is not likely enough to earn you a lawsuit. Posting "Joe's Carpets came to my house, and their cleaner kicked my dog, and dumped five pounds of poop on my carpets and I had to hire another service to clean up their mess, 1/5 stars and you're an idiot if you ever hire them" would be actionable libel.

Unless the Joe's Carpets guy actually did kick your dog, and dumped poop on your carpets, in which case you're in the clear. The truth is an absolute defense.

Re:Shill Reviews

[DaveV1.0]

Saying "Joe's Carpets sucks 1/5" when one doesn't have any knowledge of Joe's Carpets is a lie crafted to hurt the business of Joe's Carpets.

Re:Shill Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

i know this is just coming from an A C but in regards to amazon
once when i had a bad experience with a vendor(about six weeks ago) i left a review that was really fair , i mean i told the 100% truth in the little space they now allot for a review
amazon hasnt printed it even after i followed up on it with amazon weeks later
they said its "under review"

How else do you prove whether reviews are faked?

[blackm0k]

What a load of hyperbole. This has nothing to do with the right to remain anonymous online and everything to do with proving that the reviews are fake. This may even relate to some of Yelp's alleged unscrupulous business practices: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2012/08/16/think-yelp-is-unbiased-think-again/

"Court Rules Against Online Anonymity" my *ass*!

[kheldan]

That's an unnecessarily sensationalist headline if I ever saw one. Slashdot editors get modded down to "-1, Troll" for that so far as I'm concerned. Some random court making a ruling concerning one single website does not a huge controversy make.

Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

The court ruled that the cleaner had established a case based on Yelp's terms of service, that all reviews had to be by customers and based on service. The cleaner claimed they could not match up customer records to these people, and needed to identify them to prove that they libeled him by claiming they were customers and they were not. Libel and defamation are clear exceptions to freedom of speech so are not protected under anonymity. Yelp also tried to apply rulings from other states when Virginia had a code specifically to filter when anonymity was allowed and when these subpoena's were justified.

So, a bunch of people posted negative reviews on yelp, owner provided enough proof that they weren't customers so were lying to justify subpoena, court agreed. If any of the posters were actual customers they will prevail and can actually counter-sue if they prove the cleaner lied when he said he could not find them in his files. If they were not customers they the lied and are liable for libel (great name for a band).

Re:Misleading title

[Adrian Lopez]

Yelp's terms of service are irrelevant. Public statements against public figures aren't libelous unless they are false. Factual statements made by non customers are factual by definition. False statements made by customers are likewise necessarily false. The libel is in claiming something happened that never did. It doesn't matter whether the person who wrote it was a customer.

Re:Misleading title

[david_thornley]

If Yelp's TOS specify customers only, then there's at least an implication that all reviews on Yelp are from customers. Therefore, any reviews might be considered to have an implicit claim of being from customers. IANAL (which may be painfully obvious to lawyers), and I don't know the applicable law.

YEah.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not make a federal case out of this.

Full disclosure

[nickmalthus]

If the courts are obsessed with full disclosure how about we start posting online full receipts for services? I have thought about doing this many times when I thought I was being ripped off by a service provider and wanted to warn other potential customers of my negative experience. If one is unable to legally provide anonymous public feedback about a service provider then why should one be limited in publicly disclosing all their interactions with the service provider?

Give him a mask...

[Petron]

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
        -Oscar Wilde

Re:Give him a mask...

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Oscar Wilde: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

On the internet, if you give him a mask "he will start trolling".

Re:Give him a mask...

[suutar]

Is that supposed to be disagreement?

Re:Give him a mask...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is countered by John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Which just goes to show you there is a saying for every point of view, which is why sayings are not worth much.

Re:Give him a mask...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

On the internet, if you give him a mask "he will start trolling".

The internet is my mask, you insensitive clod!

Re:Give him a mask...

[xyzzymage]

That's actually not accurate. The anonymity->trolling idea was a theory somebody came up with offhand based on a single study of how people act in-person in situations where they're either completely unknown/anonymous or fully recognized, but *not* the Internet standard of pseudonymous.

Studies since then have matched what social sites have clearly shown: most people that engage in aggressive behavior online have no problem posting the same things under their real names, as they're unashamed or even proud of their words, as they see themselves as either just having fun or "telling it like it is." Because of this, the presence of pseudonymity/anonymity has very little impact on the frequency of assholes.

Wrong focus..

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting as an Anonymous Coward, according to slashdot. Well i guess anonymity is something misunderstood.

Well anonymity is quite a big issue to discuss. However, for this particular case things are quite simple. The problem is "fake" negative reviews. So the issue is not "anonymity" itself (the privacy of the user), but letting strangers actually post a negative (or positive) comment without having any interaction (using the service).

So things should be more clear. Someone should be allowed to post a comment only if he used the service (clean a carpet). All these in an "anonymized" context.

Who said what??

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that goes against 238 years of Constitutional law.

So....

[Anonymous Coward]

Its ok to be anonymous if you leave good feedback?

Re:How else do you prove whether reviews are faked

[Anonymous Coward]

Truthful summaries of situations such as this would never make it to the front page. People want to get angry about a headline, moan about the loss of rights, all while never reading the actual information.

Re:Appropriate Conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that old saying on SlashDot

    Correlation is not causation?

Or something like that. The point being that your are historically inaccurate, segregation was outlawed in 1900's USA, and segregation does not equate with the USA having a Constitution, three branches of government, and governmental "checks & balances".

HORRIBLE website

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot is joke. it even let doesn't anyone get first post. why that is i use Yahoo! Tech News website, the traditional and typical of internet glorious history and cultural

case dismissed

[swschrad]

the Chewbacca defense always wins.

Knock yourself out

[areusche]

Streisand Effect: http://www.yelp.com/biz/hadeed-carpet-alexandria

Slander is not protected speech

[Timmy D Programmer]

Slander is not protected speech. If they really were customers of this guy they would have no difficulty at all proving they were customers. If they were customers they can go after this guy for malicious prosecution. If they are phonies just trying to hurt his business then they deserve to get their asses sued off to make up any damages they cause this fellow.

Virginia does a fine job protecting privacy

[davide marney]

See http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+8.01-407.1 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 the way to the end of the ruling, you'll see in fact that the dissenting judge dissented not on the fact that the code shouldn't have been followed, but that it wasn't followed _enough_ in his opinion.

Re:Appropriate Conclusion

[i kan reed]

Or something like that. The point being that your are historically inaccurate, segregation was outlawed in 1900's USA,

Most factually accurate correction, ever. I remember that George Wallace "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" speech from 1894, right?

"gregation does not equate with the USA having a Constitution, three branches of government, and governmental "checks & balances". Nor does it have any relationship to this stupid ruling, but that didn't prevent backwards "it was better in the old days" nonsense from coming in and stinking up the thread.

Shouldn't have used his real name...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pity he didn't make that comment anonymously...

Compromise

[kaizendojo]

Allow anonymous comments, but then let NON anonymous member/moderators decide whether they are full of shit or not. You know, like we do here.

Re:Compromise

[Khyber]

Unfortunately that has bugs too. Meta-moderation, for example.

Write up a law or constitutional amendment...

[Anonymous Coward]

Covering it, and get it posted on slashdot :)

Re:Write up a law or constitutional amendment...

[Anonymous Coward]

Covering it, and get it posted on slashdot :)

...Make any sense this way. \:

I thought it just meant...

[Anonymous Coward]

They used a really good vacuum :)

Anonymous has ruled against the court.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous has ruled that the court does not have the authority to make such a ruling.

powerful people hate anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

anonymity is the only true defense the the powerless have against the powerful

and it is the only way the powerless can make their grievances heard in public without the powerful using that power to harm the complainer

fundamentally that's what power really is, the ability to cause others harm without repercussion

so of course anyone who currently has power sees anonymity as a threat

Libel

[phorm]

Indeed, if we allow these "anonymous" comments to stand, how about if somebody creates an anon account to accuse somebody of being a sex offender, or something else which could get them into a lot of trouble? Just because it's a business doesn't mean they don't have a right to fight against abuse. As it stands, it went to court and a judge has ruled. It will be interesting to see if the posters are real customers, trolls, or rival companies.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess every online shop or reviewer website needs to conform to this ruling now?

Relevant section from the PDF

[BillX]

The actual text of the reviews is not included, but the description of the implicated posts suggests that in at least some cases, it may have been possible to correlate the description of work performed to a customer record, or potentially rule out the reviewer as a customer (e.g. the New Jersey customer). With many caveats and unknowns, of course.

10. The negative reviews in Exhibit 5 are false and
defamatory. For example, user âoeBob G.â from Oakton allegedly
relates how he was in a desperate need of emergency carpet
cleaning and was ripped off. User âoeChris H.â from Washington
reported that his precious rugs were shrunk. User âoeJ8.â from Falls
Church reports that he was charged for work never performed.
User âoeYB.â from Fairfax reports that unauthorized work was
performed and his rug was stained. One user, âoeAris P.â from
Haddonfield, N.J. reports that the price was double the quote and
that Hadeed was once bankrupt. Many of the negative reviews
report that the price was double what was charged [sic]. After
combing it customer records, Hadeed was at a loss to find record
of these allegations. Regarding Aris P., in particular, Hadeed
conducts no business in New Jersey.

The above sound like they are written as pretty clear-cut customer testimonials (e.g. I actually did business with X, was quoted Y, charged Z), but this ruling brings up an interesting question: what is VA's legal criterion for being a "customer" to post reviews? An example that comes to mind is a user that posts a negative review of a business because the owner was rude/threatening/racist/etc., and left the business for this reason prior to completing a purchase. The Yelp page of a local yarn store is full of such reviews, where the prospective customer indicates he/she left in disgust before purchasing (i.e. does not assert that any purchase was made or service rendered). Would such reviewers also be unmasked?

How do you unmask...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you unmask someone who posted from a Starbucks with their MAC address spoofed???

Do you have the right to anonymously shout "Fire!"

[bobwyman]

Do you have the right to anonymity while shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater?

How can we prevent people from shouting "Fire!" if we have no means to discover *who* shouted "Fire!"?

Stop Using Yelp

[Anonymous Coward]

So I think the issue here is to stop using Yelp and use some other review site that is more anonymous or outside U.S. legal authority. And of course don't use a real name and mask your true IP address. By the time you do all that you may not want to write a review, but at least you could honestly criticize without fear of retaliation.

And I would personally boycott that carpet company and spread word-of-mouth to friends and family not to use them.

Take all online reviews with a grain of salt. Word-of-mouth reviews are generally more reliable anyway.