Italian Court Throws Out TripAdvisor Fine Over Bad Reviews

jfruh writes: TripAdvisor had been fined half a million euros in Italy for publishing "misleading" information in its reviews. But now an Italian court has thrown out that punishment, saying that the site clearly states that the reviews are user-submitted and that TripAdvisor can't confirm all details. In a statement the company said the court's decision, "confirmed what we always knew: that TripAdvisor is a hugely valuable and reliable resource.”

Comments

Is it?

[lastman71]

But the problem was not the reviews, but that in advertisement tripadvisor said that reviews are verified, and of course they are not.

Re:Is it?

[Pubstar]

They never said they were verified. They said they were "Authentic and Genuine". While some would obviously fall through the cracks, this court ruling said that they are using enough proper protections to ensure that paid or fake reviews don't get through.

Nobody is saying it's not valuable...

[h33t l4x0r]

But holding a small businesses reputation hostage is a dicey business model. And when dotcoms get so big that they cam lobby for favorable laws / rulings then the world becomes a scarier place.

Re: Nobody is saying it's not valuable...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to get fined for posting that a shifty hotel is shifty?

Re:Nobody is saying it's not valuable...

[gstoddart]

You know, sometimes businesses give you shitty service. In which case nobody is holding their reputation hostage, they've have earned a lousy reputation through bad service.

Usually when I travel I look into reviews. When I do travel I mostly rent from owner-rented condos and the like. Give me a great, clean place to stay and I'll give you a good review. Give me a lousy place to stay, not so much.

The trick with travel reviews is you have to read enough of them to understand them, and you also have to get a sense of what to expect for where you're going.

I've seen some reviews for places which after a while you go "OK, some people don't understand the differences between their home and where they're going". So some reviews will complain about stupid things because they don't know any better (I've seen reviews complaining the voltage was 220v or that there were lizards around ... and this means someone didn't understand they were going to a tropical country different from their own. I've even seen people complain about rain, like that's under anyone's control.).

I've seen other reviews about rude or lazy staff, or unclean conditions, and I take note of those.

But, really, having read a lot of TripAdvisor reviews, the majority of them are written by real people who have actually been there.

If you give crap service and get a bad review, you don't get to play the victim card. Despite all of this bullshit happening where companies sue because of bad reviews, telling the truth about an actual experiences is legal and not libelous, despite the morons who want it to be otherwise.

The Art of Getting Sued Again

[Anonymous Coward]

the company said the court's decision, "confirmed what we always knew: that TripAdvisor is a hugely valuable and reliable resource.”

As if the company wanted to be sued again.

Reliable?

[marovada]

So they can say it's a "reliable" resource even though they can't verify any of the details in the reviews?

Re:Reliable?

[ls671]

Simple, come to /.

For example, I can assure you that the Hotel Centro in Rome is one of the finest Hotel I have been to.

Re:Reliable?

[rippeltippel]

I wonder how difficult it would be to validate the reviews by asking users to submit their hotel receipt (maybe without publishing them).

You can still fake them, but maybe it wouldn't be worth the pain.

Same for all other review-based websites (amazon, etc)

Re:Reliable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I found that part hilarious, particularly after the court literally said that the reason they didn't get fined is because they specificly state that the reviews are unreliable.

Yes reliable

[Anonymous Coward]

You can completely rely on the fact that these are biased, user submitted opinion and that you should not base your actions on these reviews.

Re:Yes reliable

[EzInKy]

So give them as much credence as the paid positive reviews then? It's gotten to the point that I won't buy anything that doesn't have at least a couple of negative reviews to balance out a product's cheerleaders. Nothing is so perfect that somebody somewhere can't find something wrong with it.

Re:Yes reliable

[Anonymous Coward]

So give them as much credence as the paid positive reviews then? It's gotten to the point that I won't buy anything that doesn't have at least a couple of negative reviews to balance out a product's cheerleaders. Nothing is so perfect that somebody somewhere can't find something wrong with it.

My mum says I'm perfect. Are you calling her a liar?

Re:Yes reliable

[EzInKy]

My mum says I'm perfect. Are you calling her a liar?

So did mine, a half a century ago. Overtime though the warts and blemishes developed so today we just accept each other as being mere humans.

Valuable and reliable?

[wonkey_monkey]

In a statement the company said the court's decision, "confirmed what we always knew: that TripAdvisor is a hugely valuable and reliable resource.”

TripAdvisor were then called back in and fined €1m for contempt of court.

Re:Valuable and reliable?

[alexhs]

I think the idea is that the CEO will have to pay the fines in person instead of the company, but yes :

the reviews are user-submitted and TripAdvisor can't confirm all details

TripAdvisor is a hugely valuable and reliable resource

Does not compute.

Re:Valuable and reliable?

[gl4ss]

if it wasn't a valuable resource then the hotels wouldn't have bothered suing them for negative reviews.

anyways, which hotels were those? maybe avoid them. frigg, some hotels have tried to pull off the trick of trying to charge persons for posting negative reviews as well. it's all very sketchy.

If I said that Yotel new york is overpriced here - should Yotel be able to sue slashdot? of course not - that's friggin silly.

Re:Valuable and reliable?

[Carewolf]

if it wasn't a valuable resource then the hotels wouldn't have bothered suing them for negative reviews.

I think you need to replace the word valuable with popular here, unless you mean valuable in the strict sense of having monetary value.

Re:Valuable and reliable?

[Anonymous Coward]

if it wasn't a valuable resource then the hotels wouldn't have bothered suing them for negative reviews.

anyways, which hotels were those? maybe avoid them. frigg, some hotels have tried to pull off the trick of trying to charge persons for posting negative reviews as well. it's all very sketchy.

If I said that Yotel new york is overpriced here - should Yotel be able to sue slashdot? of course not - that's friggin silly.

LOL. "wouldn't have bothered" assumes the courts are valid and fair.

You don't know much about Italian "courts" do you.

It's about grifting, bribes, and grandstanding over there and not a whole lot else.

Just the opposite what they said

[houghi]

To me this means that it is unrealiable as it is unverifiable. As they are unable tp verify the details, we do not know if the reviews are true or not.

And this goes for both the good and the bad.

And just like with IMdB ratings, it is highly different per individual what you like or dislike.It can also vary on a day per day basis on how e.g. the revieuwer felt like that day or how the people he met where at that day.

When I look at the negative comments from e.g. Americans on bookings.com, I know that I have a complete different (not better or worse, different) expectation on what I want in a stay.

Re:Just the opposite what they said

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If reviews are unverified, then there's no point in having a website that publishes them. If I were TripAdvisor's CEO, I wouldn't be that happy about the ruling, the Court basically said that they offer no service at all, hence they cannot be fined. It realy doesn't sound as great publicity.

What?

[Chris Mattern]

No, the court said that you weren't liable because you stated up front that your reviews aren't reliable.

Better than Yelp; still sucks. and site is broken

[drinkypoo]

I have some reviews on TripAdvisor. The good: You write a review, they post it, you can look at it. The bad: You write a review of a new restaurant, presumably they call them up just like Yelp and if they don't get money, they don't go in the index. The best restaurant I ate at in Panama (I was there for a month) didn't make the index. Probably went out of business before people even realized it existed... hmm no, I see that they did finally add it, but they didn't use the picture I took or the review I wrote.

My problem is that the site doesn't work, at all, if I have any protections on. You know, Ghostery, noscript, etc. I permitted their domain and their CDN and yet none of the links work. So they won't be getting any more content from me... but they wouldn't anyway, since they ate my last and most important review.

I might also add

[drinkypoo]

I forwarded this message above along to webmaster, pr, and support@tripadvisor.com. webmaster and pr bounced, and support gave an autoreply saying to use the website to contact them. But the website doesn't work, so I can't do that. So, Tripadvisor broke their website, and they don't care. They deserve to fail. Just let them fail.

Re:I might also add

[KingMotley]

The website works just fine. Perhaps you should contact noscript, ghostery, etc and complain their stuff breaks stuff.

Re:I might also add

[drinkypoo]

The website works just fine. Perhaps you should contact noscript, ghostery, etc and complain their stuff breaks stuff.

If your site doesn't work when your domain and CDN (and other typicals like jquery) are enabled in noscript and ghostery is turned on then you're probably a festering piece of shit anyway and your site can DIAF.

Re:I might also add

[rtb61]

Trip Advisor operators and managers are really slack and need to spend some time with real legal advice. From the article "The association cited a recent âoestingâ by the lifestyle magazine Italia a Tavola (Italy at Table), which posted fake reviews of a make-believe restaurant", well, that ain't no sting that is fraud and because it represents the abuse of a computer network, a computer crime as well. So where is the prosecution for that, what hasn't the Trip Advisor team sought to prosecute that criminal behaviour, why are they not sticking up for their real members. The intent was fraudulent and the actions criminal, and that association who sought to use it against Trip Advisor ignored the actual crime that took place with that "sting". So how much advertising money was spent by the members of the Hoteliers association with Italia a Tavola in order to purposefully fabricate evidence of a crime by committing that crime and who should the courts be really prosecuting.

Re:I might also add

[KingMotley]

This has what to do with the conversation?

Re:Better than Yelp; still sucks. and site is brok

[Anonymous Coward]

You are supposed to register your own business on TripAdvisor. There is no fee for doing so.

Your restaurant in Panama didn't know enough about marketing to add their own business to TripAdvisor. Too bad.

Re:Better than Yelp; still sucks. and site is brok

[drinkypoo]

You are supposed to register your own business on TripAdvisor. There is no fee for doing so.

Maybe that's true now but when I wrote the review, they explicitly told me that they would review and decide whether the restaurant should be added. If that wasn't true, then they should not have set my expectations incorrectly.

Re:Better than Yelp; still sucks. and site is brok

[joelsherrill]

Things may have changed but I have added a restaurant in the past as part of submitting a review. It didn't take any special magic.