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California Tells Businesses: Stop Trying To Ban Consumer Reviews
ericgoldman writes Some businesses are so paranoid about negative consumer reviews that they have contractually banned their customers from writing reviews or imposed fines on consumers who bash them. California has told businesses to stop it. AB 2365--signed by Governor Brown yesterday, and the first law of its kind in the nation--says any contract provisions restricting consumer reviews are void, and simply including an anti-review clause in the contract can trigger penalties of $2,500.
I own a tiny one person business. In order for me to reply to comments on Yelp! I have to pay them a monthly fee. Last time I looked one patient gave me a glowing review. Before that I was "invisible." After that I got 30 calls from people working for Yelp! trying to get to to 'join.'
Meanwhile, other business review websites have popped up, giving me 4/5 stars. Basically, they quote the Yelp! review, but knock it down one star. For low number of reviews? For?
For me fortunately it probably makes no difference. But at the same time if I'm looking for a plumber it is so easy to go with the guy with good reviews.
My dad pretty much does this. He says sometimes there are customers not worth having. They bitch and moan, saying everything is wrong even though the product is 100% fine. He would not have been in business 40 years if it wasn't, with almost all of his customers being repeat clients. These people just trying to get a massive discount on a product . So my dad just tells them to go to his competitor because he no longer wants their business.
It's like the people in a restaurant who eat 80% of their food then say they don't like it and ask for refund.
I worked at a small independent grocery store where sometimes we had loss leaders. Well there was this one lady who owned a local restaurant and would come in and load up her cart full of the sale item. We told her she couldn't do that and was meant for families. So we started putting limit signs. She would then start sending in her kids to get more. After so much hassle and constantly running out of product annoying others customers, the owner banned her and her family from the store
I'm not so sure what that widely repeated line from the film Forrest Gump is supposed to mean. Every box of Zachary chocolates that I've seen has a map of the chocolates on the inside of the lid. I wonder if this misconception was meant as a sign of Forrest's inability to read the map due to mild low intelligence. Or are maps of chocolate samplers the result of increased food allergen awareness that didn't exist during the era when the film takes place? Or am I overanalyzing?
NDAs are to cover technology or "trade secrets" - writing a review for "peppermint Coca-Cola" (making something up) saying "it sucks moose balls" isn't revealing their 'recipe' for making it or anything secret, anyone can buy a can and make their own judgement.
By the same token, even if I enter an NDA with a company to, say, integrate their technology into a product - saying "these people are a PITA to work with and I would never want to deal with them again" isn't violating the NDA on their technology.
Now... I could see perhaps if you entered into a deal with say Rossi and the "eCat" cold fusion nonsense, that saying "they're a fraud, the technology is a hoax" might perhaps be a gray area - but still, as long as you're not revealing their 'secret catalyst' or the actual (non-) functioning details of the device, you aren't really revealing their 'secret' technology?
You're right that businesses should respond to negative reviews and customer complaints. However, the burden is rather high on small businesses to be constantly doing this. And hiring an outside firm to do it doesn't guarantee satisfactory results all the time either.
Since Google's being forced to delist web pages (DMCA and all), Yelp and other such directory sites probably should be forced to have a delist procedure as well. In fact, I would think that a lot of issues with fake reviews and fake updates and such would be solved if many of these things were opt-in (in the same way that Craig's List or eBay or Amazon Marketplace or Google Shopping is opt-in). At the very least, there should be an ability to opt-out.
I mean, it's one thing to complain when the system you took part in is working against you, but it's something else to be forced into the system that without your active involvement is being gamed against you.
People forget that consumer protection is not just about protecting the consumer directly, but also about preventing unfair business practices to maintain a competitive landscape (this falls in the same vein as price collusion, except it's one bad actor instead of multiple bad actors).
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Their intent is to sell to local families, not be a restaurant supply business. The women intentional abused the intent. When the spelled it out to her, she still abused the intent. So they banned her. They chose to put families over a business, and good for them.
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Agreed. I always go straight to the bad reviews. Usually the 2-3 star are the most useful. 1 star is often posted by people that will never be happy and is usually a rant about something insignificant, unless there are lots of them. Even a company with 99% ratings, I'll look at those 2-3 stars to see how they handle things when they DO have problems,
That's the real lesson companies need to learn. Bad reviews are a great chance for good PR. It's ok to screw up. Last time I logged a complaint at Amazon, I almost felt bad about having said anything. THAT is why they're dominating the market. I have paid extra to buy things through them rather than direct from a dealer because the Amazon backing had that much value to me. I didn't know if the dealer would back the product, but I *KNEW* Amazon would.
Does this mean that DeWitt clauses (http://sqlmag.com/sql-server/devils-dewitt-clause) prohibiting publication of benchmark results are now invalid by statute in California? I'm sure that would be he very definition of 'unintended consequence', but I'd love for it to be true.
> I own a tiny one person business. In order for me to reply to comments on Yelp! I have to pay them a monthly fee.
This is the exact same business model as the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
When the BBB gets a complaint against a non-member business they use it as a sales pitch to sell a membership to the business. The hook is that BBB members have a much easier time getting complaints wiped from their BBB record. The specifics vary from franchaise to franchaise, but the gist is that unresolved complaints against non-members never expire but unresolved complaints against members are wiped clean after 12-24 months.
The BBB scam can actually be good for customers, but not in the way the BBB would have you think. If you see a non-member business with a clean record, then you can be sure their record is really clean. But clean records for member businesses are inconclusive, kind of like a carfax report that says no problems - there still might be problems, they just aren't on the record.