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Attorney Sues Website Over His Online Rating
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jun 09, 2007 06:46 PM
from the don't-put-me-in-a-box dept.
from the don't-put-me-in-a-box dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that a local attorney is suing legal startup Avvo over a rating that was algorithmically assigned. The story covers the controversy of computers grading humans. 'Browne, who has participated in a number of high-profile cases in the state, including the defense of arsonist Martin Pang, said in an interview that Avvo is being irresponsible with the ratings and called them a fraud. And he questioned why Supreme Court justices and prominent lawyers score so low. Three other attorneys interviewed by the P-I also expressed doubts about the rating system, while News.com reported that the site "seemed to be riddled with bizarre errors."' Such practices are not new: the New York Times earlier this year reported on Google using algorithms to determine applicant suitability. But what happens when you don't like the result? Can a computer program be considered defamatory?"
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Just another tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I use a hand-held calculator to get a result, and then publish it and that publication defames someone, I can't blame it on the calculator.
In this case, a computer is just another tool used to calculate something - perhaps a tool that many people don't understand as well as they should - but a tool nonetheless.
You use it, you take responsibility for the results. You don't understand how it works? Hire a consultant. The fact that it is a complex tool does not excuse you if you libel someone.
( NB: The above paragraphs presume that there is indeed libel, a fact not yet proven.)
Nice sig (Score:3, Funny)
Parent's Sig: When members of a profession start referring to non-members as 'laymen', it is time to start shooting them.
Shooting whom? The members of the profession or the laymen? If you're going to call for someone's head, you should at least be a little more specific about whose head you want served to you on a silver platter.
Re:Nice sig (Score:5, Funny)
u = "start referring to nonmembers as 'laymen'"
When members of a profession u, it is time to start shooting them.
It becomes clear, now.
Parent
Food for thought, or thought for food? (Score:5, Funny)
Those who call lawyers useless aren't being very open minded. Lawyers may be a melamine-free source of protein, but I think my cat would prefer something a bit less bony than the head.
I wonder if the computer program has a way to rate them on flavor?
Parent
Re:Food for thought, or thought for food? (Score:5, Informative)
I had to get a lawyer because my landlord was a slimy, conniving liar. And it's turned out to be some of the best money I've ever spent, because before I was spending loads of time doing all the paperwork and covering my own ass. Now the lawyer does it. And he's a nice guy, to boot. Shocking.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Defense Lawyers = Good
Other Person's Lawyer = Bad
Prosecutor Lawyers = Really Bad
Corporate Lawyers = Really Evil
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Our landlord had just purchased the place, and was still making repairs. One thing we stated very clearly was that we NEEDED the garage, because we were 7 people, and I have a home-based business. He said that the previous owner had a lot of garbage in the garage, and it would be cleaned out and we'd be provided access, then he would finish the garage. He also
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what to think of this. As a restaurant, you can earn michelin stars based on the grades you get from probably several testers. Did you ever hear of a restaurant that sued michelin for loosing a star? It doesn't seem to make sense.
Rmember, any person, magazine, or website can grade services, but they will only be taken seriously when they have a decent method. Systems like this work when not only the public has faith in the method, but also the people involved (e.g. the chefs), respect the way the testing was done. If restaurants would think that the michelin system is fake, they wouldn't be proud of their stars in the first place.
Since there seems to be quite a group of people that do not agree with the method used by that website, they can of course try to sue them, but I figure that the website will be rendered useless within the trade fast enough that they might as well just ignore the score of the website all together. Sueing might even be counterproductive, I didn't know before that the website existed in the first place. And I think he has very much the right to do so. He never asked to be rated, but at the same time the rating will be of high economic importance to him (getting more high-profile jobs, etc.). Now you could compare this with a restaurant getting the famous michelin stars, it can make or brake the restaurant. Now In cases like that, you need to be able to ask for a second opinion.
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some human made a decision somewhere.
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think not.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem here isn't the math, or the low ratings. The problem is idiots like you who don't understand that an industry rating depends on the faith of the people and the respect of the industry.
If the site gets no faith or respect, the site will fail.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what this situation reminds me of. Credit scores (which is what the above lines reference) are calculated by an algorithm, and they can be wrong. If they are, you can get the company to adjust them, provided that you can provide evidence that their input is faulty. I see no reason that this case should be any different, provided the inputs (reasons for the ranking) are well known.
In the case of Google, however, they are providing a ranking rather than a rating. It is much, much harder to objectively rank webpage relevance based on search terms, and even harder to know whether a given ranking is justified when you don't even know the algorithm used.
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think layman is a lot better than vulgar, don't you, you vulgar person?
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Funny)
Have you read some of the comments people put in source code?
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Programs are merely an extension of the human(s) who designed them, the program does what the human(s) told them to do. Therefore what a program does is the full responsibility of the human who designed it.
I always laugh when a programmer tells me, "there's a bug in my program." My first questions is always, "well, who put that bug there?" Programmers talk of bugs as if they just magically appear, and are not the result of the programmer's error(s).
The comment that programs cannot be defamatory smacks as specious at best. Of course, programs can be defamatory. Programs are written by humans, programs are computerized extensions of humans.
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Insightful)
if(applicant.sex == female) rating = 0.0;
That would certainly violate equal opportunity laws, unless the company could prove that the output of said program was not used at all.
Parent
Re:One can argue many ways on the X of CS and Law. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ranking someone based on your critera is not libel.
Re:Just another tool. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah?
int main()
{
int x = 2;
return 0;
}
Parent
Re:Just another tool. (Score:4, Insightful)
But is it libel? I see very little difference between this and consumer reports - Both take data and attempt to draw a simple rating/conclusion from it. If the lawer wins his case it undermines the whole independent review and ratings system - because anybody giving a negative rating would be open to a lawsuit.
How they weigh their ratings is up to them, just as it's my choice as to how heavily I weigh their ratings (anywhere from not bothering to read them to simply attempting to get the highest rated).
Errors in the data is one thing - for it to be true libel it would probably have to be deliberate. As they get more data into the system, improve accuracy, etc... The ratings should become more accurate.
Parent
Re:My Opinion? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can think of a few reasons why supreme court judges would be legitimately rated low. Support for blatant ex post facto laws; commerce clause inversion; allowing states to take people's property; allowing wiretapping before a warrant is issued (FISA); Allowing congress to blackmail the states by withholding highway (and other) funds; allowing the right to bear arms to be infringed upon; allowing government support of Christianity; outright ignoring the 10th amendment (see earlier reference to blackmail); cowardly and un-statesmanlike refusal to hear critical cases of government malfeasance (like Robert Newdow's); allowing the state to infringe upon the liberties of the citizens (drug war, censorship, marriage, sexuality, unreasonable copyright and patent terms and mechanisms; allowing the feds to step beyond the enumerated powers without requiring a constitutional convention; restricting freedom of speech (free speech zones, censorship, funeral zones, etc.)... that's all just off the top of my head.
Yeah, I could definitely see low supreme court ratings.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Correction: "Robert Newdow" should be "Michael Newdow." Told you it was off the top of my head. :) My apologies for the error.
Re:My Opinion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, that'd be close, all right. Perhaps I meant injustices.
That would be the feds marching into California and swooping down on medical marijuana users based on a commerce clause argument that 100% intrastate commerce "could be" or "could have been" interstate commerce, and so the feds claim to have jurisdiction to screw with California law, legislators, and citizens. Which they do not. The ruling and the reasoning is sophist nonsense. The constitution says in sec 8, para 1 through para 3, that The Congress shall have Power To... regulate Commerce... among the several States. That's it. No more than that. It's an enumerated power, and there is no authority implied or specified that allows mucking about with commerce internal to a state. Furthermore, the 10th amendment makes the limit explicit: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. So there you have it. They have the authority to regulate intrastate commerce, but not interstate commerce. The court is out of line, and so are the feds.
That observation in no way precludes the fact that there are other ways to build roads, including ways that don't screw with people's properties at all. You can go under them; you can go around them; worst case, you can even go over them, though you certainly ought to pay for that privilege. It is wrong to steal, and it is no less wrong when the government does it.
The idea of "fair compensation" is intellectually bankrupt. If I own a piece of land, and I want to sell it, that is where it can be determined that it has a specific monetary value. The way that is done is that when you offer enough money to satisfy me, I'll let you have it.
If you don't, I won't. But if I own that property and for whatever reason, I do not want to sell it, then you cannot put a value on it that equates to "reasonable compensation." How do you compensate for my ancestors having raised generations there? How do you compensate for the view, or the fishing in my lake? How do you compensate for the fact that my brother died in that house, or that I was married there? Or that I built it by hand? Or that I lost my virginity on the living room couch?
The answer, of course, is that you can't, not that it is fair to use some number a bunch of people I didn't delegate my feelings and associations to invented based on their feelings. I'll tell you how it actually works: force and threat of force. Coercion. There isn't a reasonable step in the entire process.
Sure, I'll point the problem out. It is what we call blackmail, where one party is forced to do something it does not believe is legal, ethical or otherwise proper, by another party that wields a coercive force. I'll point something else out, too: the trust the people put in the government to build and maintain a general infrastructure doesn't include the presumption that said power will be used as a weapon, nor does it include the presumption that the feds won't build roads in some states, while building in others. The collection of taxes is (barely) tolerated with the idea that said collection is done for the common good, not in order to wield a coercive force on the states. The fact that the feds do wield such coercive forces is contrary to article 1, section 8 of the
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless that commerce is interstate commerce despite remaining within the state. Honestly, your argument has lost since Gibbons, which was back in the 1820's.
That observation in no way precludes the fact that there are other ways to build roads, including ways that don't screw with people's properties at all. You can go under them; you can go around them; worst case, you can ev
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
See, you probably didn't even have to tell us you were a lawyer; your ability to consider an absolutely absurd and contradictory argument perfectly reasonable might have done it. "Unless that is a pillow despite being a knife" "Unless that color is blue, despite being red." "Unless you actually threatened me, despite having never threatened anyone in your life."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Okay, this is the amendment that reads "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people."
So, if the power to spend federal monies was not delegated to the United States, then you'd have a point. Let's see what Article I has to say:
"The Congress shall have power
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. You've agreed that the government has the power to take land. Remember that word: take. Not 'buy,' or 'purchase,' but take. That is to take it from the previous owner, whether that person likes it or not.
Which brings us to this: No such thing as "just compensation" can be established by third parties if the property is not offered for sale.
Assuming that you're right -- you're not, btw -- then we'd have a little conundrum.
You are saying th
Ironically ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unless he wins (this is in the US, right?), in which case they'll be obliged to increase his rating.
"Think I'm a bad lawyer? I'll show you!"...."See, I told you I was a good lawyer."
It's an input problem (Score:5, Interesting)
An example that most here can relate to is the US News and World Report college rankings. It's a whole other topic in itself, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of discussion about their inputs and how it has influenced the way colleges operate. Most colleges try to get many small donations instead of a few big ones, because the rankings weigh number of donors more heavily than total amount donated. They encourage many, many applications from just about anyone because they get ranked based on the number of applications that they reject.
Once people learn what the inputs are, they just game the system.
Re:It's an input problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Ugh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It happens because human laws have a lot of flexibility that computers don't have. When human logic turns against them, people respond with "don't be a fool, you know what I mean". You can't do that with computers.
It's a simple fact that this guy is not as good as some other lawyers, according to a given set of objective factors. If they change the algorithm to improve his rating, then what about other lawyer
"Can a computer program be considered derogatory?" (Score:4, Insightful)
switch (person.getSkinColor()) {
Re:"Can a computer program be considered derogator (Score:5, Interesting)
As an aside, I really doubt that skin colour is going to be expressible as a simple enumeration or integer, so you won't be able to switch on it...
Parent
Defamatory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone in RL judges people based on algorithms in their heads, "He didn't do as well as person Y, and charges more than Z". Typical defamation cases are thrown against people who have messed up algorithms, "He wears white all the time...I hate white" or poor input, "I've only seen him lose". Why shouldn't a
In a perfect world... (Score:3, Funny)
2) Attorney loses, and his rating goes even lower.
3)
4) Profit!
Ok, 3 and 4 aren't really necessary.
Am I a Good Attorney...? (Score:4, Funny)
FICO (Score:3, Interesting)
bad program but not defamatory (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like the rating algorithm isn't very good, but I don't see how this guy can win a suit for defamation. In US law, only false claims of FACT are actionable. If the web site stated that a lawyer had received a reprimand from the bar association when he had not, that would be defamatory. If it said he had cheated a client or bribed a juror and he had not, that would be defamatory. But saying: "This guy is a jackass" or "This guy is a poor lawyer" is not actionable because these are opinions.
I'm not sure what can be made of the use of a poor algorithm. If they disclose the algorithm and say "Here is what we get when we plug in the data we have", so long as the data is accurate and they apply the algorithm correctly, they aren't making any false claims of fact. Ethically, it seems like there should be a penalty if they persist in using an algorithm that demonstrably does not produce output that is reasonably related to what people generally take to be valid measures of lawyer quality and if they deceive people into thinking that it is valid, but I'm not sure how this can be addressed legally. I think you'd have to argue that there is an objective definition of lawyer quality of which the algorithm gives a false view. I don't know if defamation has ever been proven on such a basis.
Fundamentally flawed business plan. (Score:5, Funny)
This is quite possibly the first time anyone thought they could make money by being sued constantly. Anyone who thought that the dot-com bubble used up all of the reservoirs of stupidity may now rest assured that fresh reserves have been discovered.
No malice = no defamation (Score:3, Interesting)
This guy is a public figure. In order to successfully claim libel, he must prove malice [eff.org]. An algorithm can't have malice against him in particular. This guy is out of his depth. To paraphrase an old saying in the legal profession, a lawyer who represents himself is an idiot.
Attorney's solution. Litigate. (Score:4, Insightful)
Does that mean the company behind the algorithm is biased? Yeah again. In this case (not necessarily Avvo's case) this algorithm is blatantly biased, trying to rate people on their skin color.
Does this mean it's illegal? Not unless the law has changed. If he wants to litigate then he needs to prove the algorithm is biased (and a few anomalies doesn't mean it's biased, it means it has a flaw) Avvo has to be biased in such a way they are making a profit over the difference. Avvo has to be deliberating trying to damage someone's career for it to even be illegal.
If the algorithm is running correctly and there's no X factor (meaningless stastical values, such as the color of the skin) then there's no crime here. They might not have a perfect algorithm but they arn't claiming it.
If the lawyer in question wanted to fix this correctly, he should bring this to the attention of the site, point out numerous cases of people being graded too harshly and then publicize the data to the public if need be. From the sound of it, there's little to no proof except some lawyers feeling they are being treated unfairly. From the sound of it, that's sour grapes, there's no defamation.
Just because an algorithm is poorly designed it doesn't mean it's crap, errors happen even with great algorithm's first iterations. There's still a burden of proof on the lawyer and I'm not hearing any real proof yet.
How to do ratings right (Score:4, Interesting)
We've had to face a similar problem as Avvo with SiteTruth [sitetruth.com], which rates web sites. The answer seems to have two parts - integrity and transparency. This means looking at information that comes from reliable sources other than the thing being rated, and showing the information from which the ranking is derived.
Avvo is trying to do this. Avvo's information comes partly from external sources, like legal directories and records of disciplinary actions. That's less game-able than traditional web search. And Avvo shows that information, so they have transparency.
Google is slowly coming around to this point of view. Originally, Google rankings were opaque, but now they've put in various "Webmaster Console" features to show some of the information that drives their algorithm.
Google faces the problem that some of their metrics for detecting junk web sites are heuristic, and rely on "security through obscurity". They don't want to say exactly how obscure text can be before it's considered "hidden text", or exactly what they consider a "link farm", or they'll be spammed right up to the allowed limit. So they can't have full transparency. They're inherently limited by the approach of primarily looking at the web site itself, which the site operator can change freely, to rate the site.
Google does look at some external non-Web information, but mostly things like how long a domain has been registered.
Avvo has user ratings of lawyers, which probably aren't that useful. User ratings are most valuable when the universe of raters is much larger than the number of things being rated. So it's good for major movies, where there are tens of new movies and millions of fans, marginal for hotels, and weak for businesses few people have heard of. There aren't enough clients per lawyer to get a statistically valid result, and it's too easy to game when the number of raters is small.
Re:Sympathy for the Devil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent