Yelp Ordered to Reveal Identities of Anonymous Users

[hopmedic]

Court orders Yelp to reveal anonymous reviewers' identities in defamation case | Mail Online

In a decision that will strike fear in the hearts of all anonymous online trolls, an Alexandria judge ruled on Tuesday that Yelp must comply with the demand of Joe Hadeed's attorneys and hand over the names of the reviewers.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I haven't used Yelp or Poynt since I stopped using BlackBerry. I wasn't even aware Yelp still existed.

 

[tbonecopper]

Laura, have you heard of the Amy's Bakery scandal? That started because Yelp exists. (not to say Yelp is at fault, ofc)

 

[Laura Knotek]

Laura, have you heard of the Amy's Bakery scandal? That started because Yelp exists. (not to say Yelp is at fault, ofc)

No, I haven't. However, I've never heard of Amy's Bakery at all, much less that it is involved in a scandal.

 

[tbonecopper]

To carefully and without using liebelous statements summarize that event.

Amy's Baking Company was/is a baker in Arizona. They have/had a reputation for being very unprofessional towards their customers, calling the police on them for non-illegal offenses, and a litany of other things. As such, their reviews on Yelp were very poor, critical, and often - shocking.

The owner(s) are a married couple. The wife is seemingly (tho I am not a professional and can't say 100%) mentally unstable.

They volunteered for that Gordon Ramsay show - Kitchen Nightmares US, which turned out to be a huge thing for the media. It drew negative cricitism from the woodworks. Many criticized the public behavior of the owners. Others criticized Yelp for allowing people to make fake reviews and not actually enforcing it. Yelp has been accused of bribing restaurants with paying Yelp, if they don't pay - the negative reviews will show first. Supposedly, it's not the case, whatever.

In many ways, the court order above, isn't so bad. If I had a business, I wouldn't want a website with such social klout as Yelp to enable people to randomly write reviews, when I've had no interaction. To be fair.. Ofc, it may not be worth starting a witch hunt over either, unless your business is in jeopardy.

If you're curious about Amy's Baking Company: Amy's Baking Company - Kitchen Nightmares - Full Episode - YouTube

 

[palandri]

Angie's List was sued not that long ago for negative comments ruining a small business. I have no idea how the case came out. I heard about it on CNN.

 

[hopmedic]

Wow (watched the first couple minutes of the video).

I hope no one misunderstands me - I don't disagree with the court. I think that while honest reviews, both bad and good, should be allowed, certainly a business owner should be allowed to hold fake reviewers accountable.

I haven't used yelp on a regular basis ever, in fact very rarely. When I first got my Trophy, whenever it was that the yelp app came out, or maybe it already was out, I installed it, and maybe used it once or twice (had never used it before). I may have looked at it once or twice since. I had no idea that Yelp had been accused of anything illicit - nor Angie's List, for that matter (never used that).

 

[Laura Knotek]

Angie's List was sued not that long ago for negative comments ruining a small business. I have no idea how the case came out. I heard about it on CNN.

I think the difference is that Angie's List requires a paid membership. I don't belong to it, though, so I have no idea how good it is.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I have reviewed a few businesses on Foursquare.

Foursquare check-ins are sometimes inaccurate in their categories. I remember one time I checked in at a gas station on Foursquare, but it showed up as my "first strip club"! LOL I contacted Foursquare, and they did change the business category from "strip club" to "gas station/automotive shop". I have no idea how "strip club" even entered the picture, as there are no adult entertainment businesses in that entire city, much less in that area.

 

[odin09]

I always post my yelp reviews with my name and photo so it doesn't really affect me. I don't really like a court ordering a private business like yelp to reveal this info.

 

[Guytronic]

Things to come.
I can see more and more libel cases stemming from this type of activity.
In my opinion it's about time the internet slows down the ignorant rude nastiness of some humans.

Used to read forum comments on many news sites and a lot of the commenting became what I would call "an on-line fist fight."
The review sites such as Yelp can be just as demeaning.

Noticed recently WSJ is really cracking down on the nasty trash and run anonymous posting (actually not allowed at all).
Many other "web forum hangouts" are doing the same.
I've quit a couple of forums and try my best to not hang on the negativity of such places as Amazon reviews.

The review and forum trashing can really get out of hand quickly.
A true and sad statement of who some of us really are.

Just because you think it doesn't mean you should type it.

 

[odin09]

The key is for sites to have good moderators. On Yelp it is pretty obvious that some reviews are legitimate criticism and others are not.