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.

Comments

Re:reviews

[kruach aum]

Everybody has one?

hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

while the intent of this law is good, it might have unintended consequences for contracts requiring NDA's that now allows customers to review secret details of products or company practices on public forums.

Re:hmmmm

[mlts]

I would probably think a judge will rule about NDAs, and tend to rule in favor of businesses. Trade secrets have centuries of precedent behind them. Even if a jury is involved (as this is a civil issue), it would end up being appealed.

There is one concern of mine about this law: Shills for place "A" who post scads of bad reviews about spot "B" that are not in themselves defamatory, but a lot of one-star reviews add up. At the extreme, a place could try to pay people to visit review sites that are in other cities (and where they don't ever plan to visit) just to make one-star reviews.

Re:hmmmm

[ledow]

I don't care how many 1-star reviews a place get. You know what matters? How they respond to them.

I'd rather go to a place that replies politely to every negative review than one that ignores them entirely. And if they are genuinely fake, things such as "We have no record of your stay, but we're sorry that you had trouble" speak a thousand times more to what's actually happening then any amount of ignorance.

Everywhere gets bad reviews. You cannot have perfection. What matters is how you deal with when you fuck up.

Re:hmmmm

[amRadioHed]

This law applies specifically to consumer goods. How many consumer goods require an NDA to purchase? In pretty sure not even the Apple store has tried that.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one more headache for small businesses. Oh great, I forgot to check supplies because I was on Yelp. Now we're out of Dijon mustard. Next thing you know, there's a 1-star review from somebody who loves Dijon mustard. If there isn't any existing law, conspiracy to place unwarranted negative reviews should also be illegal. Competitors and their employees should be barred, or at the very least required to disclose their positions. That would be similar to the financial talking heads on TV who have to say if they own the stocks they discuss.

Re:hmmmm

[SydShamino]

What you're saying is, every small business has to do business with Yelp. They're the 1000 lb gorilla in this case, and Yelp itself has earned plenty of bad reviews from businesses forced to deal with them.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:hmmmm

[jbolden]

A shill posting a fake review is still committing defamation. A company whose purpose is to commit crimes is committing racketeering. This law covers fines for bad reviews from customers not negative reviews from non customers.

Re:hmmmm

[cheater512]

It should be a clear enough distinction. Hotel's and restaurants don't get you to sign NDA's.

Re:hmmmm

[cheater512]

If they care about Yelp, then yes they have to work with Yelp.
If they don't care about Yelp then they can ignore it completely.

You can't care about Yelp but not want to do anything about it so the site should be shut down.

Re:hmmmm

[mysidia]

This law applies specifically to consumer goods. How many consumer goods require an NDA to purchase?

Many EULAs contain something that is NDA-like.

Some consumer products even forbid you from publishing performance metrics or the results of comparative performance testing.... if I recall correctly, VMware used to be known for this, specifically.

Re:hmmmm

[hawguy]

That's one more headache for small businesses. Oh great, I forgot to check supplies because I was on Yelp. Now we're out of Dijon mustard. Next thing you know, there's a 1-star review from somebody who loves Dijon mustard. If there isn't any existing law, conspiracy to place unwarranted negative reviews should also be illegal. Competitors and their employees should be barred, or at the very least required to disclose their positions. That would be similar to the financial talking heads on TV who have to say if they own the stocks they discuss.

If the business ran out of Dijon mustard, they deserve the one star review from the Dijon lover -- that way other Dijon lovers can steer clear. Why shouldn't a restaurant get bad reviews for not stocking an expected condiment? If the restaurant doesn't have time to stock basic supplies, what else is falling through the cracks?

Re:hmmmm

[mysidia]

It should be a clear enough distinction. Hotel's and restaurants don't get you to sign NDA's.

Some may start adding a non-disclosure clause, that is, if they think it can allow them to legally restrict negative reviews.

Re:hmmmm

[taustin]

It applies to restrictions on consumer - end customer - reviews, specifically. An NDA on consumer goods is not a common thing; most NDAs apply to employees. And this bill doesn't address that sort of thing at all. Read literally, however, yeah, it does seem to prohibit an NDA that restricts a consumer's right to talk trash about bad services or products. How it gets enforced is anybody's guess. California courts can get pretty stupid sometimes (and remarkably sensible at others).

I got no problem with it, though. If you can't stay in business if your customers talk about your products and services honestly, then you've got far bigger problems than this law.

Re:hmmmm

[taustin]

Indeed. Those are already inadequately covered by existing law.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It applies to consumer goods *and services*. This would cover bus companies, hotels, movie theaters, and many other businesses which routinely include absurd "agreements" on the back of the ticket or in a "terms of service" document that is incorporated by reference when you make a reservation.

Re:hmmmm

[MildlyTangy]

A shill posting a fake review is still committing defamation. A company whose purpose is to commit crimes is committing racketeering. This law covers fines for bad reviews from customers not negative reviews from non customers.

Nope. Shills always write GOOD reviews...saying something nice is NOT defamation.

A company whose purpose is to commit crimes is committing racketeering.

Nope. That company is committing a crime, it has nothing to do with racketeering unless the company is making and selling tennis rackets.

This law covers fines for bad reviews from customers not negative reviews from non customers.

Nope. Not all bad reviews are negative.
.
. :-)

Re:hmmmm

[CaptnZilog]

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?

Re:hmmmm

[cheater512]

For it to be a NDA it would also have to include positive reviews, and also telling your family about your stay.

"Our holiday was lovely! We stayed at and it was "

Re:hmmmm

[steelfood]

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).

Re:hmmmm

[geekoid]

As there should be.
People will read the post that say 'one star no DIJON!!!!!!11!!!!!' And evaluate it properly.

If someone is malicious and lying, then there are already laws in place for that.

Re:hmmmm

[geekoid]

NDAs, for the most part, aren't legal in Ca. There are some companies, military, that are exempt.

Re:hmmmm

[Paco103]

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.

Re:hmmmm

[mark-t]

Nope. Shills always write GOOD reviews...saying something nice is NOT defamation.

You're right.. it's false advertising.

Still not welcome

Re:hmmmm

[sillybilly]

I was just gonna bring up the topic of EULA's. But thanks for doing that instead. And it's not just VMware, but all heavy iron SQL database vendors like MS SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, etc. A decade ago I used to look at storagereview.com for harddrives, then I'd look for database performance reviews, just to find out the software EULA specifically forbids those. What a load of crap?

Re:hmmmm

[mjwx]

I don't care how many 1-star reviews a place get. You know what matters? How they respond to them.

I'd rather go to a place that replies politely to every negative review than one that ignores them entirely. And if they are genuinely fake, things such as "We have no record of your stay, but we're sorry that you had trouble" speak a thousand times more to what's actually happening then any amount of ignorance.

Everywhere gets bad reviews. You cannot have perfection. What matters is how you deal with when you fuck up.

This x 1000.

Fuck ups happen, I'd rather stay with someone who understands how to deal with them than someone who pretends they dont happen.

I know quite a few hoteliers (protip: if you want a good room, book direct and not through an agency) and the problem isn't just bad reviews, the problem is that people are too meek (read: gutless) to bring a problem to a owner/managers attention. So the live with the problem for their entire stay and then make a "scathing" review on Yelp or trip advisor. So often a guest can do something about their problem with a short conversation with the owner or manager (or front desk if its a big hotel) but wont. Often the hotel management doesn't know about the problem (previous guests hide or ignore them because they're scared of being charged for it) and managers cant count on housekeepers working for minimum wage (or less in some countries) who have dozens of rooms to do, to do a thorough inspection when a guest leaves.

There is an art form to complaining and getting what you want. First you must be clear about the resolution you would like, but also friendly (this is why I prefer to do it in person rather than over the phone, even if I have to wait in a line). God and hotel managers help those who help themselves, going a little way to fixing an issue is enough to make someone else go a long way. Appreciation is always appreciated, just a thanks. To a hotelier it makes them feel good about themselves and you (this often leads to discounts, free upgrades and drinks, especially for repeat customers). For staff it earns them brownie points, promotions or sometimes bonuses (so if a front desk staffer, concierge or housekeeper helps you, leave a compliment and make sure to mention those who helped you by name).

Beyond this you have the outliers, guests who are just difficult to deal with. I'm sure we all know the kind, people who want to pay bottom dollar but expect champagne service and nothing is ever good enough for these people. Fortunately these people are as rare as they are arrogant and blusterous.

Of course there are always crap hotels. But a bigger issue is that a lot of people who have a bad time have a bad time because they did nothing to fix it. Why wait until after leaving to make your issue known and make a big song and dance on an anonymous message board when 99 times out of 100 they'll fix it for you because being hospitable is what the hospitality industry is all about.

Knowing a bit about how guests behave from the other side of the desk means I explicitly dont trust sites like Trip Advisor or Yelp because they're too easily manipulated by the passive aggressive. Also, they can be manipulated by the other side (especially Trip Advisor) to have genuine negative reviews quashed or edited (remember with these sites, you aren't paying for them so that makes you the product, not the client).

Re:hmmmm

[mjwx]

This law applies specifically to consumer goods. How many consumer goods require an NDA to purchase?

Many EULAs contain something that is NDA-like.

Some consumer products even forbid you from publishing performance metrics or the results of comparative performance testing.... if I recall correctly, VMware used to be known for this, specifically.

Publishing is a different kettle of fish. Publishing means a syndicated or corporate distribution. It is also used to prevent competitors from publishing fake reviews (I.E. I'm pretty certain this is what Uber was doing to Lyft).

However message boards (and sites like Yelp are just that) are not covered as publications.

However in my country, shrink wrap EULA's and NDA's are completely unenforceable. We have strong laws against deformation and slander (but the truth or at least reasonable doubt is a watertight defence) but you cannot stop a customer from making a negative review. Hell, you cant stop a professional reporter (or troll) from doing it unless you can prove they are flat out lying (and I mean flat out, exaggerations dont count).

If you have an NDA, that is an explicit contract between you and another party that you have agreed to and signed so you will be held to it. You cannot be held to a contract you haven't signed (or even been given the opportunity to read, like so many EULAs).

Re: hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

No one will ever love you

Re:hmmmm

[MaskedSlacker]

You don't get to opt-out of being the subject of other people's freedom of speech.

Unless you're Kim Jong Un.

Re:hmmmm

[sexconker]

Incorrect, an NDA is legal in California. You are possibly confusing a non-disclosure with a non-compete, two completely different things.

Incorrect, NDAs are illegal in the entire US of A.
The judicial branch enforcing a a contract that restricts speech is tantamount to the government restricting speech - a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.
The government should never enforce a contract where party A agreed to sever their foot for party B's amusement and $50. The government should never enforce any contracts where party A agrees to give up any fundamental rights, under any terms, for party B.
The fact that this is routinely done is bullshit. These rights are inalienable and cannot legally be given up.

Re:hmmmm

[ClickOnThis]

Freedom of speech. I can say anything I want about anyone.

Within reasonable limits. There are laws that cover libel, slander, nuisance, needlessly yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, etc.

I'm allowed to have an opinion.

Absolutely 100% true. But nobody is obliged to help you express that opinion. And IANAL, but my understanding is that your ability to express an opinion can be affected by any contract you sign, including the click-through contracts these companies are foisting on their customers at the time of purchase.

BTW, I wholeheartedly support what California is doing here. What these companies are doing is unconscionable, but possibly tenable. This law closes the door on it.

Re:hmmmm

[sg_oneill]

while the intent of this law is good, it might have unintended consequences for contracts requiring NDA's that now allows customers to review secret details of products or company practices on public forums.

If it ends oppressive NDAs I'll pop a cork. Any gain in freedoms should be celebrated. Protecting corporate secrets just isn't as important as protecting free speech.

Re:hmmmm

[silfen]

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

You can't force Google to "delist web pages" in the US except for blatant copyright violations or a few other issues. Of course, you can always choose not to have your own web pages indexed by Google (robots.txt).

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

Ah, yes, the rallying cry of crooks, cheats, and crony capitalists: "we're just protecting the consumer". Uh huh, right... Go suck a lemon.

Re:hmmmm

[Altrag]

True, but Yelp! and similar are also under no obligation to make your speech accessible via their search engines.

I'm not sure being able to opt-out of Yelp! (presumably you'd lose/hide both your good and bad reviews if you did) is really all that useful.

I suppose being a non-entity (ie: you don't show up on Yelp! at all) is better than having a terrible rating, but generally speaking opting out would mean you're losing visibility and unless you truly suck, that's a worse prospect than dealing with a few bad reviews.

Re:hmmmm

[PRMan]

The government isn't restricting your speech. They are recognizing that you traded that right for financial compensation.

Re:hmmmm

[Kkloe]

exactly, ofcours there can be errors and such in orders that I might not have been delivered but that is up to the business to reply with that answer and in a polite way

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re:hmmmm

[mwvdlee]

Unless ofcourse if sufficient businesses decide that it's cheaper as a whole to not have to deal with Yelp at all.
If you have few employees, spending time on Yelp and the likes is pretty expensive.

Re:hmmmm

[Sique]

An NDA would run afoul the aforementioned law, because it explicitely states:

This bill would prohibit a contract or proposed contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services from including a provision waiving the consumer’s right to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods or services.

Re:hmmmm

[ruir]

This seems almost like an extortion racket, but done by "refined" gentlemen instead of the mob.

Re:hmmmm

[Jason Levine]

A lot of times, I find bad reviews to be uninformative. You often get a mix of people who don't seem able to articulate WHY they are giving a bad review, just that it is bad ("WORST. ITEM. EVAH!!!111!!!!") and people who refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for poor performance being due to their own mistakes (e.g. a product that says it requires X with a 1 star review that says "After ordering this product, I tried for 2 HOURS to get it to work. Finally, I called Customer Service and they said it needs X to work. What a scam!!!").

I tend to find the overall pattern of reviews more informative. If 85% of the reviews are 4 or 5 stars, 10% are 3 stars, and 5% are 1 or 2 stars, then the product is likely to be good. If 50% are 4 or 5 stars, 20% are 3 stars, and 30% are 1 or 2 stars, I'd shy away from buying the product.

Re:hmmmm

[Jason Levine]

This lead me to wonder what the term would be for people who post bad reviews of a company/product for the purposes of helping that company/product's competitor. For example, if LG paid people to post horrible reviews about the new Samsung phone. Obviously, they are not shills, but there doesn't seem to be an exact term for these people.

This Wikipedia section discusses it and they suggest either "false flag" (though that's more military-related) or "straw man." In the case of the latter, it references misrepresenting an opponent's argument, easily refuting the misrepresented argument, and then using that to "prove" you are right. These fake bad reviews allow you to misrepresent how good a competitor's product/service is, thus "proving" that yours is better.

Does anyone know if there actually is a term that I just didn't find in my admittedly quick Googling?

Re:hmmmm

[ftobin]

I have a couple of of issues:

I know quite a few hoteliers (protip: if you want a good room, book direct and not through an agency)

People don't want to have to deal with handing over booking details to each and every different hotel they may reserve at. If the hotel is providing lower-quality rooms for customers paying through an agency, the customer definitely has a right to complain. They aren't being offered a choice of room upon booking, and have no way of expressing a preference to pay more or less for different experiences.

the problem is that people are too meek (read: gutless) to bring a problem to a owner/managers attention. So the live with the problem for their entire stay and then make a "scathing" review on Yelp or trip advisor. So often a guest can do something about their problem with a short conversation with the owner or manager (or front desk if its a big hotel) but wont. Often the hotel management doesn't know about the problem (previous guests hide or ignore them because they're scared of being charged for it) and managers cant count on housekeepers working for minimum wage (or less in some countries) who have dozens of rooms to do, to do a thorough inspection when a guest leaves.

First, you're expecting the customer to do work for management. I don't know how many hotel customers are repeat customers, but from my own experience, I don't know if I've ever gone to the same hotel twice. Once I've stayed at the hotel and had a poor experience, I don't have incentive to report it to the management. I just want to leave and get back on with my trip.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend owns a little restaurant and Yelp's current tactic is to hound them weekly to 'throw a Yelp party' which essentially means let 20-30 people come in and eat for free in exchange for a pile of favorable Yelp reviews. Combined with the 'pay to respond to comments' pitch and some, 'we can't really do anything about fraudulent negative reviews if you're not a member' and the extortion racket is plenty clear.

To their credit, they just regularly tell Yelp to piss off. Sure, there are a handful of negative reviews, and anyone relying solely on Yelp reviews would be very surprised at how packed the place is all the time. There's something to be said for ignoring Yelp's BS if you have the quality and reputation to survive their extortion.

Re:hmmmm

[orgelspieler]

My favorite bad review response ever:

Review:

Incredibly rude disgusting fat slob insulted me and my family. Needed a table for five wife and kids in line midway to counter, I decide to sit down (just had hip replacement) and this idiot approaches and tells me to order or get out. This punk needs for someone to adjust his attitude.

Response from the owner:

This is the fat slob. I wanted to put some context around Mr Scaccia's review. First, no disputting it, I'm fat. I take issue with the rude and slob parts. I shower every day. I say please and thank you. But, fat, unfortunately I can't dispute that.

OK, let's talk about our interaction yesterday. I was in the dining room as I am almost every Saturday and Sunday when we start to get really busy. We had a medium sized line (probably about 15 people) and we were seating groups as they ordered so that everyone could get a table before they get their food. I call it Kindergarten rules. if someone is in front of you, they get to go first. I came around the corner and Mr S was at a table that had been put together for 8 people as was a man caring a baby carrier who was also looking for a table for a larger group. I asked Mr S if he had ordered yet and he said he hadn't and I told him that we would get him a table once his group had ordered.

I couldn't get anything more out of my mouth. Mr S said "well if we can't have a table then we will just leave." I did not approach Mr. S and tell him to order or get out, I said that we would get him a table once his group had ordered. After he proclaimed that if he didn't get a table right then that he would leave, I told him to have a nice day.

This really isn't a position I ever like to be put in. We don't have a line to the door every saturday and sunday because we are bad at what we do. The line is there because we take care of our customers and all their requests, just as we would have taken care of Mr. S. I was still going to try to save this relationship, but what Mr. S did next shocked me so much that I froze. He threw his menu on the table, moved toward me and belly bumped me out of his way and stormed off. (I'm not sure if he noticed the video camera that hopefully caught all of this directly next to the flat screen in the corner as he pushed me out of his way)

I then proceeded to help the group of 8 with the baby and the group of 7 with the elderly couple who had waited in line and ordered, get their tables after they had ordered, as I did for the next hour and a half every other large group who walked in and calmly waited in our long but quickly moving line. I wish I had a much bigger restaurant and a much smaller stomach but the facts are the facts.

Mr S would have hopefully spent this morning back in Louisiana writing a great review about this little mom and pop restaurant in Houston if he had only let us do our job, but he chose to give me an ultimatum where I can't win. Let him take a table before two groups who were in front of him, making a family with small children and a baby stand and wait or the group with the elderly couple stand and wait. I feel I did the only thing I could and wish Mr. S the opportunity to reflect on this situation and see the big picture.

Brock Silverstein Pecan Creek Grille

Re:hmmmm

[Sloppy]

..contracts requiring NDA's that now allows customers to review secret details of products or company practices on public forums.

Can someone who favors this, explain why this might be a good thing instead of a bad thing? Maybe an example? It sounds to me like endangering such a (seemingly, to me) bad practice might be an intended consequence, not an unintended one.

I can't even see how a review made under an NDA might be useful. The premise is that the reviewer is withholding information. "The spaghetti was excellent. [censored]I am prohibited from saying anything about the sauce.[/censored]"

Re:hmmmm

[digitrev]

Libel, slander, harassment, yes. But not yelling fire in a crowded theatre. That was used to justify censorship of war critics.

Re:hmmmm

[Proteus]

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. By your logic, I could hire someone to put an ad on television for me and I'd have no recourse if they instead make an ad for a competitor or make an ad that's just one long "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK".

All freedoms have limits, none are absolute. Freedom of speech, for example, does not include:

• The right for you to place others in immediate danger as a result of your speech (e.g. the "yelling Fire in a crowded theatre" example)
• The right for you to damage others' reputations through telling of falsehoods (libel and slander)
• The right for private property owners to give you a platform -- I can kick you out of my building for your racist speech, but I can't kick you off the sidewalk

And those are just a few examples. The fact that you have freedom of speech means that you have the free choice to enter into an NDA or not. You cannot be coerced (this would invalidate the contract) to do so, and NDAs have to be limited in scope (you can't talk about this thing, specifically) and duration (I can't prevent you from talking about it forever).

Your ideas of both constitutional and contract law are incredibly naive.

Re:hmmmm

[Nethead]

Jess at Ocean Crest Resort could give a class on how to respond to negative (and positive) comments.

Re:hmmmm

[Falos]

It's worth pointing out that the freedom isn't in question, you're getting charged with the consequential result. Obviously, it's illegal to endanger other people, or harass them or whatever, that is why those are blocked.

Re:hmmmm

[vipvop]

Good troll, I'll try to use this in the future

Re:hmmmm

[sexconker]

The government isn't restricting your speech. They are recognizing that you traded that right for financial compensation.

You can't trade inalienable rights. Next challenger, please.

Re:hmmmm

[sexconker]

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. By your logic, I could hire someone to put an ad on television for me and I'd have no recourse if they instead make an ad for a competitor or make an ad that's just one long "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK".

Wrong. You have the right to approve or disapprove of a work or service in exchange for money. You would be able to not pay them just fine.
You would NOT be able to then say they cannot go and advertise for your competitor, or give unsanctioned opinions of your product elsewhere. NDAs and non-competes are unconstitutional. California gets it mostly right, many states do not.

All freedoms have limits, none are absolute.

Wrong.

Freedom of speech, for example, does not include:

• The right for you to place others in immediate danger as a result of your speech (e.g. the "yelling Fire in a crowded theatre" example)
• The right for you to damage others' reputations through telling of falsehoods (libel and slander)
• The right for private property owners to give you a platform -- I can kick you out of my building for your racist speech, but I can't kick you off the sidewalk

Wrong. You absolutely have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. You then can be help culpable for any immediate, direct damages caused by your actions. Be it people being injured, be it a company showing a marked, documented, decrease in revenue that can be directly attributed to your libel, whatever. You can never (legally) be punished for speech. You can be held liable for the direct consequences.
Private property owners cannot restrict someone's speech. They can remove people from their property for any reason or no reason, but they cannot restrict their speech. If you or the cops try to physically silence someone, you're violating their rights. If you physically remove them from your property, then you're not violating their rights.

It's really fucking simple. You have rights that cannot legally ever be infringed upon.

Re:hmmmm

[david_thornley]

The problem I see with that is that review numbers are manipulable. You may be rewarding the product that spends more on having people post fake reviews.

Re:hmmmm

[david_thornley]

So, you're saying that if pursuit of happiness meant I had to take a six-month vacation, my employer should continue to pay me?

Re:hmmmm

[rpstrong]

"Pursuit of happiness" is from the Declaration of Independence - it is not a Constitutional right.

Re:hmmmm

[rpstrong]

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,[...]

Let's sincerely hope that "it sucks moose balls" is not, in fact, actually revealing the recipe.

Re:hmmmm

[rpstrong]

NDAs are simply a promise not to divulge a secret, typically signed by an employee or contractor who needs the info in order to do their job. They have nothing to do with consumer sales ("...the sale or lease of consumer goods or services..."), which this bill expressly targets.

Re:hmmmm

[mjwx]

I have a couple of of issues:

And this is why you get crap service.

People don't want to have to deal with handing over booking details to each and every different hotel they may reserve at. If the hotel is providing lower-quality rooms for customers paying through an agency, the customer definitely has a right to complain. They aren't being offered a choice of room upon booking, and have no way of expressing a preference to pay more or less for different experiences.

No, they dont.

You've written this with no idea how to run a hotel. The customers who are more valuable to you get better service. Like it or not, booking through an agency means that a hotel sees less of that money, so they're going to reserve the better rooms for people who book direct. Its the same with free upgrades, people who book direct are bumped up before people who book through agencies.

Like I said, you're someone who expects Champagne service for beer prices. You're the problem here and have no right to complain. And yes, hotels will put a note in your file saying "troublesome cunt" if you complain about it. Hotels keep notes on guests (normally it's useful stuff like Mrs Smith prefers the room to be made up around 9 AM, but troublesome customers are noted as well).

Its about doing what's right by others to get what you want. Your method is passive aggressive, if you lose, they lose. My method is assertive, if I win, they win... So naturally I'm going to win more than you.

First, you're expecting the customer to do work for management. I don't know how many hotel customers are repeat customers, but from my own experience, I don't know if I've ever gone to the same hotel twice. Once I've stayed at the hotel and had a poor experience, I don't have incentive to report it to the management. I just want to leave and get back on with my trip.

Nope, it's about being able to do something simple, to get the ball rolling on something hard.

Again you have no idea how to run a hotel (but you like to pretend you do). Managers have a million and one things to do, if you get the ball rolling on something it's a lot easier for them to keep it rolling (plus you'll earn the respect of the manager, which leads to discounts, upgrades and free shit).

At a hotel I stayed at a few years ago I noticed the WiFi was a bit slow. Rather than go down and have a big self-entitled cry to the manager, I used WiFi analyser on my tablet to determine what the problem was. Turns out there were plenty of AP's but they were all on the same channel. I went downstairs, caught the manager and explained the problem (and how to fix it) He stayed a half hour after work changing the AP channels. The next day he walks up to me and says "I've received a dozen comments that the internet is a lot faster today, thanks and I've knocked 5% off your bill". This also highlights that people who run hotels aren't experts in every and any thing.

I don't know how many hotel customers are repeat customers,

I'd focus on the first three words in that sentence.

But the answer to your question is a lot. Repeat customers are often 50%+ of a hotels business. Especially for business travel and some tourist areas get a lot of repeat business (I.E. Phuket, Thailand tends to see the same people escaping the European winter each year).

If you've never stayed in the same hotel twice, you are not an experienced traveller. I have preferred hotels in over 25 cites across the globe.

Once I've stayed at the hotel and had a poor experience, I don't have incentive to report it to the management. I just want to leave and get back on with my trip.

Again, this is passive aggressive. The problem with being passive aggressive is that you shoot yourself in the foot to shoot others in the foot.

Re:hmmmm

[ftobin]

Whether or not I know how to run a hotel is irrevelant. The driving point I'm making is that customers do have a right to complain. Simly put:

1) Clients have a right to complain about their experience, no matter their booking arrangements. Such a complaint on a review site is perfectly valid. A hotel cannot reply to the review saying "they booked through an agency, so *shrug*", and it's settled. Other potential customers would not appreciate that attitude. Whether or not that's how hotels operate that way is not important -- a complaint in the lines of "I received poor service" is valid and provides true value to future potential customers.

2) Clients are not paid to do the work for management in reporting issues. Whether or not you may get a benefit from doing work for management is besides the point: the customer isn't signing up to do such work. The client expects good service independent of whether or not they do work for the owners. Management from various industries that value providing good service pay outside companies to evaluate their offering -- they don't expect the customer to do free work.

Re:hmmmm

[allo]

"Our holiday was ! We stayed at and it was "

Re:hmmmm

[allo]

you're argumenting the wrong way. you WANT to be payed, so you do something for it. If you do NOT WANT to get sued, this should not mean you need to do something for it.

One Sure Way

[danaris]

There is one sure way to reduce negative reviews: Make sure your product and/or service is good quality.

Nothing can entirely eliminate negative reviews, because sometimes people just get a lemon product, or the person giving them service was having a bad day, or they're just ornery people who can't be satisfied. But if you do your job right, monitor your employees to make sure they're not slacking off or mistreating your customers—and, of course, the best way to do this is to make sure they're satisfied with their jobs in the first place—and don't skimp monetarily on the quality of your product, service, or employees, then you're likely to get more good reviews than bad.

Dan Aris

Re:One Sure Way

[danaris]

Or maybe they are a competitor's shill?

I'm sure that happens too! ^_~

Dan Aris

Re:One Sure Way

[mcep5f2009]

I guess these companies think it is easier to just prevent people from writing negative reviews than to make a good product. It will definitely hurt them in the long run though.

Re:One Sure Way

[danaris]

Yeah, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

Think I've heard that before...

Ummm...what?

That's generally brought up in the context of surveillance. Do you view reviews, by customers, of the products and/or services they've received from companies serving the public as being in the same category as overly broad and privacy-invading surveillance?

'Cause to me, that sounds like the kind of transparency a free market is built upon.

Dan Aris

Re:One Sure Way

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Perhaps you'll find a company out there that can afford to not skimp monetarily and yet compete at the same time, but I seriously doubt it.

Why? I for one will happily pay a higher price, even a much higher one, for good quality and service. I don't think this costs as much as it seems, because for example a good pair of shoes will last much longer than a bad pair that you'll have to replace much sooner. In any case, I prioritise value for money over cost, so for any non-essentials I'll usually prefer to save up for something nicer than buy cheap consumer tat that I won't really enjoy or find useful.

Re:One Sure Way

[gnupun]

Yeah, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

Think I've heard that before...

Exactly, what if the reviewer is an enemy trying to ruin his business or a prankster looking for some fun? There must be recourse for the owner to deal with malicious/invalid reviews.

Re:One Sure Way

[Anonymous Psychopath]

There is one sure way to reduce negative reviews: Make sure your product and/or service is good quality.

It's the best way, but not a sure way. Unscrupulous companies will sometimes engage in reverse-astroturfing, where they hire a bunch of folks to post bad reviews of their competitors.

Re:One Sure Way

[vux984]

because for example a good pair of shoes will last much longer than a bad pair that you'll have to replace much sooner.

Thing is there is no correlation between quality and cost.

I've had $100 runners fall apart within months. I've had $2 runners bought at the chinese night market last 4 years. (I had a belt bought the same night for under a buck fall apart the first time I tried using it. But I have inexpensive belts from inexpensive stores that have been with me since high school and are still just fine.

Like you I'm willing to pay more for better. But as often as not I'm paying more for same.

I can buy a car charger online for $2. I can buy another charger online for $10 and its just as good as the OEM one. I can walk into a local cellular store and buy their 'store brand' charger for $35 and find out its the SAME charger as the $2 one. Or I can pay $50 and get an OEM charger from Samsung or Apple etc and its just as good as the $10 generic online one but with a brand name logo and smarter packaging.

So I have to pay 25 times as much to reliably get a few nickels worth of resisters and slightly higher grade plastic? Because anything less, and I'm risking counterfiet goods or horrifically inferior product... but the difference between quality and junk is less than a $1 worth of actual parts/cost.

Re:One Sure Way

[geekoid]

So you subscribe the Vimes boot theory of economics ?

Of course, if saving up to buy longer lasting shoes means you won't have shoes today, or food tomorrow, it kind of changes things, don't it?

Re:One Sure Way

[rgmoore]

The contract terms will only work against actual customers, though. They won't do a thing to stop an enemy or prankster who hasn't actually bought the product or service, and consequently hasn't entered into the contract. All it will do is prevent people who are actually well informed from commenting.

Re:One Sure Way

[Jumunquo]

Amazon and Newegg will now mark reviews as "verified buyer" if they bought the product, and I'm sure it affects the overall rating in some way.

Re:One Sure Way

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I don't have a fancy name for it. For essentials like shoes and food I'm lucky enough to have plenty in the bank these days to buy what I need, so I have the luxury of choosing quality without sacrificing timeliness. But for something that costs a significant amount by whatever my financial standards are today, I'd rather wait and buy something good.

Re:One Sure Way

[danaris]

because for example a good pair of shoes will last much longer than a bad pair that you'll have to replace much sooner.

Thing is there is no correlation between quality and cost.

There is a correlation, it's just not a perfect one.

Dan Aris

Re:One Sure Way

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Thing is there is no correlation between quality and cost.

Of course there is. It's not 100% obviously, but the idea that you can in general provide inferior products or services and yet charge the same as or more than your competition makes no sense on any level.

Re:One Sure Way

[EvilJoker]

What I've found is that you don't get what you pay for; rather, you pay for what you get.

Re:One Sure Way

[evilviper]

Unscrupulous companies will sometimes engage in reverse-astroturfing, where they hire a bunch of folks to post bad reviews of their competitors.

That's called "libel" and it's been illegal forever.

Posting fake positive reviews is immoral, but legal. Posting fake negative reviews can get your ass hauled into court, and paying for every cent of damage your actions did to the target, multiplied by whatever factor the judge likes...

Re:One Sure Way

[tlhIngan]

Unscrupulous companies will sometimes engage in reverse-astroturfing, where they hire a bunch of folks to post bad reviews of their competitors.

That's called "libel" and it's been illegal forever.

Posting fake positive reviews is immoral, but legal. Posting fake negative reviews can get your ass hauled into court, and paying for every cent of damage your actions did to the target, multiplied by whatever factor the judge likes...

Yeah, have you actually TRIED to do that? Especially since those reviews are most anonymous.

First off, it's hard. Review sites like Yelp and the sort will throw up every roadblock at any attempt by any court to de-anonymize a user. In fact, if you read /. regularly, you see companies trying to do this all the time and almost everyone sides with the "protect my anonymity" sentiment. And they think you're doing it to intimidate the poster.

In short, it's impossible to identify a poster, and for the companies in question, VERY profitable. Don't forget sites like Yelp that make bad reviews automatically rise higher to the top unless you pay for advertising.

It's unfortunate really since a site like Yelp can improve their reviews tremendously if they had a verified customer service like amazon and many other sites have. (It's easy to implement too - either have Yelp give you a list of codes a customer can enter in when reviewing, or having you issue codes and then verifying them against bills).

Re:One Sure Way

[strikethree]

There is one sure way to reduce negative reviews: Make sure your product and/or service is good quality.

One aspect that you are missing:

Let's say that I am a plumber. Let's say that I work in a very competitive market. Let's say that some of my competitors are less than ethical. Let's say that one of my competitors hires an astroturfing firm. Let's say that the astroturfing firm has a hundred people give my company negative reviews and my competitor good reviews.

No. Quality work will reduce "real" negative reviews but will have zero effect on fake negative reviews... and of course, the person seeing the reviews has no way of telling which are real and which are fake. :(

Re:One Sure Way

[Lonewolf666]

Yet it is frequently attempted, up to and including outright fraud. A common and legal variety is pricing stuff highly and trying to create an impression of highest quality, but only providing average quality. An example that comes to mind is BOSE hi-fi equipment ;-p

On the other hand, decent quality has a minimum price, dictated by material and work costs. In that direction there is a limit.

Re:One Sure Way

[evilviper]

Review sites like Yelp and the sort will throw up every roadblock at any attempt by any court to de-anonymize a user.

Courts don't like being messed with. They try that a few times, and they'll eventually get smacked-down, hard.

In short, it's impossible to identify a poster

Bull.

Re:One Sure Way

[vux984]

Maybe you should try hitting an Apple store instead of wherever you're shopping now, because even the *iPad* charger is only $19.00 when you buy it there. [1] (Of course, Apple's chargers will also output more 'juice' safely than most of the $2 chargers.

And the cable is sold separately for another $20. Plus taxes.

Re:One Sure Way

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Review sites like Yelp and the sort will throw up every roadblock at any attempt by any court to de-anonymize a user.

Courts don't like being messed with. They try that a few times, and they'll eventually get smacked-down, hard.

In short, it's impossible to identify a poster

Bull.

Identifying and prosecuting are two different things. The former can be impractical, the latter can be impossible.

First, the company damaged carries the legal and financial burden of just bringing suit. That probably involves hiring an attorney and possibly a detective. Small companies will often not have those capabilities.

Then, assuming they can find them, they have to serve the offender. Good luck getting that done in Mumbai.

Then, assuming the offender don't show up to defend themselves and you win your case, you have to collect on the damages. Again, good luck with that.

Re:One Sure Way

[toddestan]

There's often going to be difference between an aftermarket charger and a counterfeit one. There are plenty of perfectly fine third-party chargers that are CE, UL listed, etc. that are safe to use. The counterfeiters generally don't concern themselves with that kind of thing and build about the cheapest thing possible.

Re:One Sure Way

[brantondaveperson]

If I'm going to plug something into the mains, and then hold it in my hand, I'm damn well going to spend some cash on it:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/warn...

Re:One Sure Way

[vux984]

Did you actually read the article you linked to? Take a look at the photo.. you can see the price tags... $10 to $25 for the rip off chargers, putting them smack in the price range for legitimate chargers. (BestBuy house brands Dynex and Insignia for example are exactly the same price range and has all the UL / CE certifications etc.)

Re:One Sure Way

[brantondaveperson]

From the video, they were 5GBP, or 9AUD (8USD). I don't know, it seems pretty cheap to me. In the photo there's a charger with four separate USB outlets, which was going for $25AUD (23USD). I guess the point it though that when it comes to those tiny phone chargers, I'm going for the legit ones and hang the cost.

Also you're comparing US prices to Australian prices, and I'm pretty sure that consumer electronics stuff is alot cheaper generally in the US (for whatever reason).

Mecial Cannabis companies

[future assassin]

In Canada started doing this from bad reviews on their facebook/twitter pages but dropping the customer and not allowing them to purchase anymore.

Re:Mecial Cannabis companies

[Em Adespoton]

In Canada started doing this from bad reviews on their facebook/twitter pages but dropping the customer and not allowing them to purchase anymore.

That actually makes sense. If I'm selling something and the people buying it complain about my product/service, I'm not going to be inclined to do further business with them. What I can't figure out is why someone complaining about product/service would be upset that they had terminated their relationship with the company who was giving them such bad customer service.

Now if ALL companies in that market blacklisted someone who gave a negative review, that would be a different story. Sounds to me like people want their cannabis cheap, but also want top notch service and product. Good luck with that.

Re:Mecial Cannabis companies

[future assassin]

Because this is suppose to be "medical grade" cannabis but people are getting weed with mould on it. So I can take if from your post that you are more then happy to sell a defective product, knowing its defective but then drop that person as a client because they show everyone that the product is so bad it can't be used.

Re:Mecial Cannabis companies

[sjames]

If a company sold me a moldy product, I don't see why I would care if they refuse to sell to me again. It's not like the situation would likely come up.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[master_kaos]

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

Re:Mecial Cannabis companies

[future assassin]

Well when you're limited to who you can buy from and stay 100% legal you have no choice since most of the other companies are just as bad or there's huge waiting time for the product.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Charliemopps]

So you used dishonest sales tactics, and then got angry when someone called you on it? Cry me a river.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[onkelonkel]

You put a low price on an item, but had no real intention of selling at that price. A customer wanted to purchase the items at the price you offered, but at that point you refused to sell.

How is this even legal?

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[master_kaos]

Well it wasn't me, I was just a kid working there. And what are you talking about? We sold to everyone at that price. We had a LIMIT sign on it and she STILL had a cart load of product. Remember this wasn't walmart with 50 skids of product in the back, we were a small independent grocer. We let her take it a few times, but enough is enough. When she literally takes 1/'2 the product not leaving much for anybody else that's bullshit.

Let me guess you are one of those asshats who is selfish and takes everything for yourself and screw everyone else.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[geekoid]

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.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Jumunquo]

Why does the story keep changing? Your original story said very clearly that she would clear store out, so then they put limit signs. Then, she would get the limit, and her kids would get the limit. Do you only have 5 customers or something? How can that clear you out if you put up a reasonable limit? Seems like she was following the rules, and they banned her anyway. I'm sorry, but that's not her fault. It's your store's fault. If they don't want to people buying just the loss leader, then make it clear that you must buy $X dollars worth of stuff in order to get the deal. Every grocery store in my area does this for turkey during Thanksgiving now. Your store harbored hidden expectations, and they just banned people who didn't meet them rather than state them clearly. That's low.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[thejynxed]

You need remedial reading comprehension. It was a grocery store selling loss leaders as a part of sales for actual family grocery shoppers, not "We're selling loss leaders so this greedy-assed restaurant owner can come clean out all of the sale items for her restaurant." Which is what they said to begin with.

I'd have banned her and her family after the first time she tried sending one of her kids in, let alone more than one of them.

Hell, I work for a major corporation that sells things, and we have policies in place banning exactly this kind of thing from "customers". Extreme couponers are also another one who are banned by policy.

Re:Mecial Cannabis companies

[Em Adespoton]

Now you're moving the goalpost... and it still doesn't really affect things. If you dislike the product enough to give it a negative review, why not go to one of the other companies, get their moldy cannabis, and not complain that time around? If EVERYONE gives negative reviews and is blacklisted by the company, they'll run out of business.

I still fail to see a real issue here (unless you raise the issue of the current state of medical cannabis in the first place, where the producers can no longer make a living at it AND produce a decent product due to new government regulations -- but that's a different rant).

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Anonymous Coward]

...

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

In Massachusetts, you can have a loss leader, but it is illegal to put a limit on purchase. This is to discourage dumping. For example, if I own a hardware store and Home Depot starts selling hammers for less then I can buy them, I can buy out their stock and resell it. Home Depot cannot restrict me from purchasing them nor limit the number of items I buy.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Pfhorrest]

I would think, if the stuff kept flying off the shelf like that (even is only due to one customer), you would just stock more of it and then sell more of it. Stock enough to let her buy all she wants and still have enough left over for everyone else who wants to buy it to get theirs too.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[rossz]

Did you fail comprehension? He clearly stated they sold the item at the advertised price. Loss leaders are perfectly legal (at least here in California), but you have to actually have to have a reasonable amount of the product on hand. So if a single person buys out all the stock, the business could get in trouble for not having the product on hand, which could be seen as bait-and-switch. When there is an extremely limited supply, it must be clearly stated in the advertisement. A loss leader is meant to attract customers in the hopes that they will buy additional items and make up for the loss and possibly gain a new regular customer. Also, it is perfectly legal to set a limit on sale items.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Anonymous Coward]

its a loss leader, an item they hope to attract people to buy other items with. its cheap and sold at a loss but the 3 other items you'll want with it makes up for it. so its sort of one sales tactic failing against a buy tactic. cant blame either.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Improv]

The "hidden expectation" is that they had a deal meant for normal consumers, not one company swooping in and buying the whole lot. Seems fine to me.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[master_kaos]

Like i said TWICE SMALL independent grocer not a costco who likes the bulk purchasers. We dont have 100,000 sqft of space to store a ton of product just in case we sell out. We pretty much always had enough stock unless this lady came in.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[master_kaos]

Your getting confused. It was 2 separate stories. 1st paragraph was about my dad. 2nd paragraph was a completely different story about me working at a local independent grocery store (I could have made it more clear I guess).

How is it bait and switch? Sounds like you don't know what bait and switch actually is.. considering all customers got the product at listed price (and if we ran out got a rain check), except of course for this one lady.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[NoImNotNineVolt]

master_kaos: “They lose money on every sale.”

Pfhorrest: “Yes, but they’ll make it up in volume!”

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[master_kaos]

Cool, then if you want to insulate your walls with tampoons go to costco, not a small town independent grocer who doesnt have 100,000+ sqft of retail space like costco. Do you honestly think the stock room is like a door to narnia that has infinite space? And you realize we also have to keep stock for the other thousands of products in the store? Sometimes the stock is meat, or other produce/dairy that needs to be kept cool. This requires refrigerators or freezers. Again enough room for individuals, not enough for extreme bulk purchasers.

We usually didn't run out, most of the time we ran out was because of this lady. Clearly you never had to manage stock at a grocery store before.. i'll give you a hint it is hard enough as it is. You actually think we DIDN'T have larger stock? of course we did.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[evilviper]

Do you honestly think the stock room is like a door to narnia that has infinite space?

No, I simply think you would like to sell your merchandise, not give it a permanent home in your back room. Who buys it, and for what purpose, is completely irrelevant to that goal. I also don't think it's a war-crime that sometimes an item is going to be out-of-stock.

Clearly you never had to manage stock at a grocery store before..

Actually, yes. A small convenience store, which sold a decent selection of groceries.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[Dinghy]

I would think, if the stuff kept flying off the shelf like that (even is only due to one customer), you would just stock more of it and then sell more of it. Stock enough to let her buy all she wants and still have enough left over for everyone else who wants to buy it to get theirs too.

You're not quite familiar with the concept of a loss leader, are you? You put a product in at a price where you're losing money but advertise it heavily in order to drive traffic to your store. You have a limited volume so that it doesn't cost you too much, and you accept the problem that customers who come in looking for that product after it's sold out will be dissatisfied. By putting a limit on the number of items that one person could purchase, you end up with one pissed off customer who isn't really generating you any profit anyways, and a lot of more satisfied higher value customers. If the goal is to get more happy customers, and the options are to put up more product you're losing money on or pissing off one person who's costing you money, you'll quickly find out that you don't feel so bad about pissing off that one person.

Netflix actually does a similar thing with their mailed DVD service. Let's say Bob and Fred both have HotSummerRelease on their wish list. Bob watches tons of movies, about 10 a month, returning the movies every 3 days. Fred doesn't watch nearly as many, usually only 2 a month, keeping the movies for 2 weeks at a time. You only have one copy of HotSummerRelease, who do you send it to? Most efficient and logically minded people will instantly say Bob. He's only going to keep the movie for 3 days, so you'll get it back sooner and can then send it to Fred.

That's not what Netflix does, though. They send the movie to Fred. Why? Because with all the movies that Bob goes through, he costs the company more money in terms of postage. Since Fred and Bob pay Netflix the same amount, but Bob costs more, Fred is a more valuable customer. Fred gets the movie first because Netflix wants to make sure that Fred is happy.

tl;dr: Not all customers are equal, and it's a fairly standard business practice to give preferential treatment to higher value customers and to tell expensive ones to shove off.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[SleazyRidr]

I would think, if you know so much about the economics of running a grocery store you'd open one and make a boatload of money.

Re: Mecial Cannabis companies

[david_thornley]

Typically, an advertisement is not legally an offer to sell that may be accepted by anyone. I've seen plenty explaining that "This is not an offer to sell, but a solicitation of an offer to buy". Even if it were legally an offer, it's an offer with some restrictions. An offer to sell two of something for $2 is not automatically an offer to sell twenty of the things for $20.

The store put the item on sale lower than their cost, advertised it, and sold limited amounts to each customer who wanted it. Given enough customers, they sell a whole lot of stuff at that price. The lady in question could have bought up to the limit with no questions asked, but there wasn't any offer to sell unlimited quantities at that price.

Re:reviews

[Em Adespoton]

Reviews are like a box of chocolate.

The person with the loose filling always gets the caramel instead of the strawberry truffle they were expecting.

Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

You stop putting the start of your comment in the subject and the rest in the body. Why? BECAUSE IT IS HARD TO READ - like all caps (BUT WORSE). We can quickly gloss over the effect it has on your argument, whether good or bad.

Re:Please can

[future assassin]

Yah ok anonymous coward slashdot post police.

Re:Please can

[neoritter]

I just thought he was a French speaking Canadian.

Re:Please can

[Wookact]

Well I am not anonymous, and yes it is annoying. I am not sure why you think its a good idea to split up your comment like that. Do you write the first few words of your email in the subject line too? Do you write the first few words on the envelope of the letter? Honestly I don't get the point. Perhaps you can sway my opinion.

Re:Please can

[nbetcher]

He's right though -- I had no idea what you were talking about until I read that the first important half of your sentence was in the subject.

Re:Please can

[khellendros1984]

Putting all of your text in the comment box would make your text more legible, and less like a word salad. Although with words like "Mecial" tossed into the mix, it makes you look like a customer of the companies you're talking about.

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a polite request backed up with reasons considered policing?

Re:Please can

[steelfood]

This is a big problem in terms of legibility. Sometimes, it's easy to tell that you're starting your post in the middle of a sentence, but sometimes, it's impossible. I would say it's worse than posting in ALL CAPS, and around as bad as not having punctuation and paragraph breaks (depending on the length of the text).

If only there was a -1 unintelligibility mod option. Posts that start in the subject and continue in the body, among the other aforementioned transgressions, would slot perfectly in.

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't often read the subject lines of comments, that's why it's annoying. You start reading the comment, it makes no sense, and then you have to go back and read the subject to understand what the hell is going on.

Re:Please can

[future assassin]

Oh well a couple spelling mistakes. As for being a customer of those companies, eh no, I do have a posession license but I prefer my weed illegal as it cheaper and better those those so called "medical companies"

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why it's annoying.

Because this:

Mecial Cannabis companies (Score:4, Informative)
by future assassin (639396) on Wednesday September 10, 2014 @05:54PM (#47875783) Homepage
In Canada started doing this from bad reviews

...is not conducive to easy reading. If the subject line showed up right above the message body, sure, putting a fragment of the comment in the subject line would be just fine. But it doesn't There's all that other shit in between. That, combined with the fact that the remaining 99% of posters leave the subject line as an ignorable "Re:Whatever" means that anyone putting anything meant to be read in the subject line is not following convention, but rather creating the worlds least amusing scavenger hunt where the prize is the missing beginning of a sentence that's probably not worth reading, but is certainly not readable as it stands. The OP here is doubly a problem in that he capitalized the word "in" which was a word in the middle of the sentence, thus wiping out the one clue that he's a filthy Subject Line First Sentence Splitter. Yes, it was probably his phone keyboard that capitalized it, but maybe that should be a bloody hint that what he's doing is completely stupid and serves no purpose but to confuse people unnecessarily.

Re:Please can

[khellendros1984]

I don't care what you smoke or don't, or where you get it. That's not the point. Neither are the spelling mistakes. The point is that obscuring your communication unclear on a communication platform is counterproductive.

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

> he is right becasue you can't be bothered to read the subject?

He is right because regular people do not expect sentences to start in the subject line.
No on writes email that way. No newspapers start their stories in the headlines. It is just not a normal convention, just like typing in all caps is not a normal convention although a handful of people don't see what's wrong with it. Nor capitalizing a word in the middle of the sentence which the OP did too. I think the problem may be too much mecial cannabis.

It boils down to who the author is writing for. Are they writing for other people to read what they wrote? Or are they just masturbating in public - it feels good for them and they don't really care if the people watching get anything out of it or not.

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

What subject? There is no subject because the subject field has been abused for storing something different. And yes, it's supposed to be redundant so when you go as far as to actually read the post itself, reading the subject is not mandatory.

Re:Please can

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a book:

Front cover = Medical companies
First page = In Afghanistan, don't make much profit.

The subject line is the fucking front cover.

Normally

[DaMattster]

I'm not a great fan of passing additional laws but this one is just good consumer protection. On the other side of the coin, businesses should be able to have comments that are just ridiculous removed as there are some people you just cannot please, no matter what.

Re:Normally

[mysidia]

Businesses should be able to have comments that are just ridiculous removed as there are some people you just cannot please, no matter what.

I disagree. "Ridiculous" is too subjective. I think the main issue is small businesses who do not have many reviews to begin with are disproportionately harmed by negative reviews, especially when false negative claims are made by the one or two people who happen to be "savvy" to a particular review site, where the highly pleased majority of customers never visit the review site.

Personally... I think, in this case, the review site should be liable for choosing a selection of reviews to publish which misrepresent customers' views.

Businesses should be able to hold customers accountable for what they claim in a review, if the customer makes any statements which are false, or "potentially libelious statements".

The review site should be liable for soliciting and selecting reviews to be published in an irresponsible manner. A responsible manner would include soliciting reviews from other customers; not publishing or scoring a product or service based on a very small number of reviews received, and providing clear and prominent disclaimers.

Re:Normally

[Jumunquo]

Liable? You mean like the business can take me to court, and I have to defend myself before a judge?

I know what you're getting at, but bringing government bureaucracy into this isn't the answer. People know that a product with few reviews isn't a good representation, and they learn which review sites are more reliable. People have greater trust in reviews from "verified buyers" as marked on many sites like Amazon. Many review sites also do have various safeguards in place to handle situations like you've mentioned (Yelp included), and those review sites gain popularity because of that. I think sometimes businesses are just paranoid about a few bad reviews. Most people don't believe everything on the Internet.

Re:Huh?

[Lab Rat Jason]

Here is an example from my home state, Utah:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/n...

This crap is actually happening a lot! Its one of the rare instances where I hope the nation follows Cali.

We need more of this

[gman003]

We need more penalties just for trying to include illegal terms in a non-negotiable contract. It's not enough to simply say "well, the courts will toss it out if they try to enforce it" - because that relies on people being able to fight a legal battle that they shouldn't have needed to fight to begin with.

Re:We need more of this

[Lab Rat Jason]

+1 This! We're already guaranteed our freedom of speech through the first amendment, but having the cash to fight it can be tough for many people. Not to mention that in the case of financial transactions, often times the business gets the upper hand because they can report you to credit agencies, and then you've got even more garbage to contend with... the penalty clause for trying to put language like that in a contract is my favorite part of this whole thing.

Re:We need more of this

[Pop69]

The amendment you mention says

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Can't see anything there that affects a private companies ability to include terms in a contract which would restrict your free speech, perhaps you could point it out to me ?

Re:We need more of this

[tepples]

Who passes the bills that give the courts power to enforce such contracts?

Re:We need more of this

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing in there about fraud, either, but we outlaw that. Could it be that you've posed a massively over-simplified and even condescending question?

Re:We need more of this

[geekoid]

"...and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
which part of the do you not understand?

Re:We need more of this

[SvnLyrBrto]

Yes, so very yes.

Severability clauses in general need to be outlawed. I'd say that sneaking something that's illegal into a contract, in the hopes that the other party won't realize that it's illegal, is a crystal clear indicator at the very least of "negotiating" in bad faith and SHOULD be prosecutable fraud. Try to pull a stunt like that on someone; and his obligations to you should be wiped clean.

Re:We need more of this

[Jason Levine]

A contract is one thing, having a line buried in your website's Terms of Use that states "By using this website you agree to not post any bad reviews about us anywhere" is another thing. In the case of the former, it's an agreement entered into by two parties where both had the opportunity to review the terms of the contract. In the case of the latter, it is a weak attempt to silence disgruntled customers. (See the KlearGear case posted above.)

Fuck beta

[Mister Liberty]

Law or no law.

Re:reviews

[ArcadeMan]

You never know what you're gonna get.

Luckily for Kitchen Nightmare's ratings

[Yakasha]

and comedy in general, Amy's Baking Company is in Arizona.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

do that.

[ArcadeMan]

We don't

Re:reviews

[RenderSeven]

The one's with teeth marks are caramel?

wow score one for free speech

[jbolden]

Terrific to hear! Nice to see this terrible practiced blocked. It has been awful damaging to enterprise software for almost two decades now.

Re:wow score one for free speech

[Moof123]

Yep, but so much more needs to be done to reign in EULA's. Having to agree to lousy binding mediation terms just to buy software or sign up for internet service is such a sham. Sadly we often end up having little real choice thanks to either no competition, or competition that employs the same tactics. There should not be 48 pages of EULA just to download and listen to a song.

Re:Huh?

[SydShamino]

Even KlearGear's lawyer can't hide his scumminess from his public statements.

>> "Ironically, if Mr. Palmer [consumer] had simply approach[ed] Kleargear first last fall and requested a stay to finance their new furnace — we would have worked with him," Mathieu [shitty company's lawyer] wrote. "We are human beings. Instead he has chosen a public forum."

Yeah, and be sure to ask your mugger if he can hold off a minute, so you can buy your lunch before he steals your credit card.

Censorship is the government's job, dammit

[gelfling]

Stop doing California's job.

Re;

[kurkosdr]

Now, if we could get legislation to ban contracts restricting class-action suits...

Re:Re;

[taustin]

If you've got the resources to pursue a class action suit at all, such a restriction can already be challenged as unconscionable.

Map of a box of chocolates

[tepples]

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?

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[Russ1642]

You're not over-analyzing, you're completely missing the point. It's not his line, it's his momma's. She's the one who says the line in the movie and he attributes it to her every time he repeats it. In her day the chocolates didn't have a little guide. It was hit or miss.

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[mjwx]

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.

Have you ever seen a normal person try to read a map?

Dear god man, you ask them to find Los Angeles and I'd be surprised if you didn't end up near Vladivostock.

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[mwvdlee]

To be fair, if all of them end up near Vladivostock instead of just some random location, it's probably the map at fault.

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[mjwx]

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?

Even a map may be no good.

In Australia there is a brand of boxed assorted, individually wrapped chocolates called Quality Street. There's about 11 varieties and 5 main colours. So the difference between getting a Strawberry Creme or Turkish delight was figuring out which was the right shade of red wrapper. Given Quality Street's reasonable price point and bright purple packaging it is favoured by elderly customers. Elderly customers who generally, dont have the best eyesight.

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[hawkinspeter]

I'm thinking of starting a class-action against Quality Street as the toffee penny is not a chocolate. Also, why do they put so many of them in and so few of the green triangles? There's the other chocolate covered toffee, so I fail to see the need for the un-covered toffee penny.

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[mjwx]

I'm thinking of starting a class-action against Quality Street as the toffee penny is not a chocolate. Also, why do they put so many of them in and so few of the green triangles? There's the other chocolate covered toffee, so I fail to see the need for the un-covered toffee penny.

I'm sure the retirement home is right behind this action :)

Re:Map of a box of chocolates

[Revek]

Now they have the guide printed on the box but I can remember when i was a kid they didn't. It was a crap shoot what you got. I always, no matter what shape they were got the nasty cherry filled coconut crap.

California gets one RIGHT!!

[LVSlushdat]

Every once in a while even a bat-s**t crazy state like California gets one right...

Ridiculous

[scarboni888]

Look if I was running a business I wouldn't want people writing negative reviews either!

Think of it this way: bad businessmen have children to feed too and you can't starve their poor kids just because of some arbitrarily designated bad business practices, correct?

Correct!

PS: Don't forget to think of the children!

Re:reviews

[geekoid]

no, those are nougat. As far as my family knows, the never come with caramal :)

So could this mean EULAs are reined in?

[rsborg]

This law applies specifically to consumer goods. How many consumer goods require an NDA to purchase?

Many EULAs contain something that is NDA-like.

Some consumer products even forbid you from publishing performance metrics or the results of comparative performance testing.... if I recall correctly, VMware used to be known for this, specifically.

Maybe this law has *good* unintended consequences?

Bechmarks?

[BaronM]

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.

Re:Bechmarks?

[MobyDisk]

We can hope! Although a better option would be for EULAs to simply be unenforcable entirely.

Does NOT work that way in the real world

[thomasn708]

In the real world very few people has the time to read the reviews for aggregated 1-star or 2-star or even 3-star businesses. Most people just focus on the 4-star and 5-star businesses, read those reviews then make a decision. Aggregated rating is a way to help save time for the consumer so that they don't have to read every single review. Lower-starred businesses will not get the benefit of the doubt, as you implied, and will likely starve to death (whether justified or not). That is why businesses are so anal about reviews.

And Yelp gets to choose if anyone reads it

[joeflies]

In other news, California courts ruled that Yelp is allowed to manipulate the ratings that users see, depending on whether the restaurant pays for advertising.

One Sure Way

[chr1st1anSoldier]

I work for a very shady company that has a lot of very negative reviews floating around places like google, yahoo, bing, pissedcustomer.com, bbb, etc. I understand that my employer even spent $10k to have a review removed from one of those places. I won't tell you the name of the company (I have bill to pay and cat afford to lose my job) but they deserve those negative reviews. They treat their customers with contempt, their service is over priced for what they get, they do not fulfill their promises, and they do shoddy work. If you provide a better service/product to your customers instead of seeing them as expendable cash cows you might be surprised at the amount of positive reviews you get over the negative ones.

Kudos California

[Lord Kano]

Because of my political leanings, I tend to assume the worst about our friends in California but this is fantastic. Hopefully it catches on elsewhere.

LK

Re:reviews

[silfen]

You know what else is like a box of chocolates?

Re:reviews

[mwvdlee]

The more expensive the better?

I really don't understand why this was required...

[Karmashock]

The very idea of such contracts is so absurd that it makes my head hurt.

Re:Lost opportunity.

[master_kaos]

no it was pretty much at wholesale price.. a bit more but not enough to make any significant profit from even with bullk sales. also generally the loss leaders were overstock from our suppliers which means we got it for cheaper. But since they aren't always overstocked we could not be an actual supplier at that price.

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[NoImNotNineVolt]

The subject of your own post is "Re:Please can". Why did I bother reading it?

Look at a random sample of subject comments in this thread, under this story, all over slashdot. An overwhelming majority are useless, not worth reading. No reasonable person should bother reading the subject.

It's a Nanny State law

[n6kuy]

Only children and babies need nannies to protect them from the Big Bad World.

Adults should be able to evaluate terms and conditions and decide for themselves whether or not to do businesss with companies that impose them; competition should weed out the ones that require onerous contracts.

Adults don't need nannies, but residents of California apparently do.

Re:It's a Nanny State law

[Lab Rat Jason]

The problem is the clause isn't under it's own title in the contract, but instead is buried in the legal mumbo-jumbo fine print... If users knew that the clause was in the contract they WOULD walk away... but that's the strategy of the lawyers and that's why so many legal contracts are written in unintelligable legal-speak. So the people who do try to read them can't understand them, and the majority of people assume "It's just a few dollars worth of product, why would this contract have any teeth in it?" This law wouldn't be necessary if there were laws requiring contracts to be written in simple language. I think there is a line between people making dumb uninformed choices, and lawyers writing contracts with predatory language. This law is addressing the predatory nature of these contracts, because it's human nature to expect that the contract contains exactly the terms that are commonly understood. It would be like a car salesman chatting you up all day about a 2% interest rate that they can get for you through their financing... but then buried deep in the paperwork is a 7% rate... would that be legal? Yes. Should that be legal? I don't think so. It's why more and more, people are recording conversations (I'm looking at you Comcast) when they enter into some kind of contract or agreement... to protect against being told one thing, then being held contractually to something else.

This whole thing reminds me of a list I saw floating around the internet about things people had agreed to give up in a contract. It had things like "immortal soul" and "firstborn child" on it. Hilarious, and illustrative of the point.

Re:DMCA delistings are unconstitutional

[Lab Rat Jason]

I kinda agree with this... Google is only telling you WHERE something is... they're not the ones infringing copyright. The problem here is Google's monopoly on search... if we had more good search providers this DMCA crap wouldn't have looked like such an easy win for MPAA and RIAA. I support DMCA takedowns for actually infringing content... but I really dislike the idea of takedowns of search listings.

Yelp Is Opt In

[ZombieBraintrust]

They are not your reviews. They are other people's reviews about you. You don't own them or control them in any way. People put thier reviews on Yelp because they want the reviews to be seen. They are opting in to being on Yelp when they post the review on Yelp.

Re:Yelp Is Opt In

[Altrag]

Sure. But that doesn't give Yelp! any obligation to publish (or even accept) those reviews. If Yelp! implements an opt-out system for businesses, then people wishing to post reviews of those businesses will have to use a different site to do so.

Free speech laws only apply to the government. Private entities like Yelp! can take it or leave it and its up to the marketplace to decide whether they're blocking so much speech as to be irrelevant. For example if they allow companies to only opt out of negative reviews, then the entire point of the review system becomes meaningless and nobody would use Yelp! anymore.

On the other hand if they only give the option to opt out of ALL reviews (both positive and negative) then the review system itself remains in tact and the companies in question just become non-entities as far as Yelp! (and its users) are concerned. Then each company could decide for itself whether its more useful to them to be visible (with potential negative reviews) or invisible (and nobody finds out about them -- at least not through Yelp!)

Re:Yelp Is Opt In

[ZombieBraintrust]

Or they can let anyone put reviews on any business. So they get reviews on more businesses. This improves their reputation among readers. Who can visit the site and find reviews on everything. That is what they did. If you want something else then create your own review site. I'm sure it will work out great with having less reviews than Yelp.

Re:Yelp Is Opt In

[Altrag]

Well I don't use Yelp! nor do I have a business, so I really couldn't care less what they do personally.

And I don't disagree that Yelp! has no real incentive to change the system -- until someone sues the tits off them and finds a judge that agrees.

Right now businesses (particularly small businesses) have little to no recourse if someone decides to take out a vendetta on them. Its an overwhelming burden for a one or two person operation if one of those people has to be spending 16 hours a day monitoring Yelp! (not to mention the thousands of smaller review sites) in order to respond to every jerk out there who gives them a crap rating because there was no parking on the public street in front of their building (that they have no control over.)

Something will eventually have to give. It will likely take a court case because as you said, Yelp! themselves have no reason to change the system, but someday somebody is going who gets burned under the current wild west system of any jackass posting anything they want with no recourse is going to find a way to get recourse.

The had them at least as far back as the '50s

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Now they have the guide printed on the box but I can remember when i was a kid they didn't.

Some off them had maps at least as far back as the '50s, and probably much further.

A classic was the "Whitman Sampler" - an assortment of their products with a handy map. In addition to being a tasty and relatively low-priced collection of their products, it let a family divide them up according to their individual preferences, and gave you the names of each, so you could (at least hypotheically) buy boxes of just the ones you like.

(I say hypothetically because I never saw boxes of the individual candies being carried in the stores that sold the samplers.)