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French Blogger Fined For Negative Restaurant Review
An anonymous reader sends an article about another case in which a business who received a negative review online decided to retaliate with legal complaints. In August of last year, a French food blogger posted a review of an Italian restaurant called Il Giardino. The restaurant owners responded with legal threats based on the claim that they lost business from search results which included the review. The blogger deleted the post, but that wasn't enough. She was brought to court, and a fine of €1,500 ($2,040) was imposed. She also had to pay court costs, which added another €1,000 ($1,360). The blogger said, "Recently several writers in France were sentenced in similar proceedings for defamation, invasion of privacy, and so on. ... I don't see the point of criticism if it's only positive. It's clear that online, people are suspicious of places that only get positive reviews."
When are these businesses going to learn that when you lawyer up against negative reviews, it suddenly becomes *newsworthy* and only makes the situation that much worse. Maybe if they spent their legal fees on training for their waitstaff, they wouldn't get those negative reviews to start with. Crazy thought, I know.
You can, you just need to phrase it right -
"I love how you can always find a table there!"
"You never need to tip the servers!"
"The bartender was at his best when serving Bud Light!"
Properly represented? You shouldn't even be in court in the first place to need representation just because you made a comment about a restaurant.
And if this blog article comes up "too high" in Google's search for the town, can you seriously blame the blogger? Blame Google if you want to blame anyone, but don't blame the blogger because of Google's page rank algorithms.