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California Tells Businesses: Stop Trying To Ban Consumer Reviews

Posted by samzenpus on from the use-your-words dept.

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.

2 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Re:hmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re: Mecial Cannabis companies by master_kaos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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