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Yelp Is Not Liable For Negative Rating 'Stars' On Website, Says Appeals Court (cbsnews.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the customer-service dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: Online review site Yelp's star rating system does not make it responsible for negative reviews of businesses because it is based on user input, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday, dismissing a libel lawsuit filed against Yelp by a Washington state locksmith company owner. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the star rating system that Yelp features is not content created by the company that helps guide people to everything from restaurants to plumbers. Under federal law, the decision said, Yelp is not liable for content its users post. The ruling focused on the libel lawsuit filed by Douglas Kimzey, a locksmith business owner in Redmond, Washington. The court said Kimzey's business received a negative review on Yelp in 2011. The review by a person identified in court documents only as "Sarah K" gave Kimzey's company one star out of five, saying it was slow to respond to a car lockout and then overcharged. The appeals court has ruled previously that the 1996 Communications Decency Act lets websites provide "neutral tools" to post material online and that they cannot be held liable for libelous or potentially libelous material posted by third parties. Monday's ruling affirmed a lower federal court decision that also dismissed Kimzey's claim that Yelp should be held liable for distributing reviews to search engines. The appeals court said distributing the content does not make Yelp the creator or developer of the content.
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Yelp Is Not Liable For Negative Rating 'Stars' On Website, Says Appeals Court More

Yelp Is Not Liable For Negative Rating 'Stars' On Website, Says Appeals Court

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  • service (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobmajdakjr ( 2484288 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:14PM (#52875419)
    maybe he should have been faster and charged a more reasonable rate >_>

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      maybe he should have been faster and charged a more reasonable rate

      Unfortunately, sometimes it's cheaper to sue than make your service better.

      • Re:service (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @11:55PM (#52876483)

        And sometimes people just give stupid reviews for no reason. If you need a locksmith in a hurry then it means something has gone wrong and you're going to be in a pissy mood and angry at the entire world, and chances are you take it all out on the guy that's driving out in the rain to help you.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Win some, lose some

        • Re:service (Score:4, Insightful)

          by eWarz ( 610883 ) on Tuesday September 13, 2016 @02:35AM (#52877011)
          If your whole business revolves around a single review that an anonymous person left on a public website...you should rethink life.

        • And sometimes people just give stupid reviews for no reason.

          Yeah but overall people do not and things should average out. No great loss unless you offer a consistently crappy service.
          Even if it somehow seems disproportionately negative for locksmiths for some reason, it should therefore equally affect your competitors.

          • On Yelp, I think the majority give stupid reviews, either too glowing or too negative. These are wannabe critics desparate to just talk anywhere online to feel self important. There is nothing useful in Yelp, ever. From bad reviewers to bad company practices, just avoid it. If you want to know if a restaurant is good, then go eat there once.

            As far as being a bad locksmith, the business owner claims the review was about a different business and attached to his by mistake, and Yelp didn't care since they

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          And sometimes people just give stupid reviews for no reason. If you need a locksmith in a hurry then it means something has gone wrong and you're going to be in a pissy mood and angry at the entire world, and chances are you take it all out on the guy that's driving out in the rain to help you.

          And this is why I don't trust my purchasing decisions to anonymous reviews.

          I've been on the intertubes long enough to know that there are a number of people who get off on giving other people grief, we call them trolls.

          Some people are permanently pissy and are never satisfied, OTOH, some people have very low standards and give 5 start to everything. Both extremes tend to skew the reliability of anonymous reviews, hence I never rely on them.

          The only time where I think about using anonymous reviews a

      • It'd be even cheaper if they bought Yelp's premium service and removed the review themselves.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      Capitalism in the US requires silencing dissent and anti-free speech when it comes to a sport player sitting for the national anthem, but not when supporting those that boo'd a presidential address about 9/11. If you provide bad service, they should sue you, not tell others about your bad service. Suing is the American Way.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mpercy ( 1085347 )

        "Capitalism in the US requires silencing dissent and anti-free speech when it comes to a sport player sitting for the national anthem"

        Not sure how the former implies the later or even what connection there may be between capitalism and protesting using the national anthem.

        As for the "requires silencing..." I think you'd be hard to pressed to find anyone who thinks the athletes should be deprived of their free speech rights or not be allowed to express their dissenting opinion. What you will find are lot of

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )

          Not sure how the former implies the later or even what connection there may be between capitalism and protesting using the national anthem.

          The article is about a business silencing free speech because the affected business didn't like it. That's the same as the general population silencing political speech because they don't like it. That the second happens regularly is a direct cause for the first being acceptable. If the second were not acceptable, then the first wouldn't be either. That you don't see "freedom of speech" as being related to "freedom of speech" is not something I can help you with. Perhaps you can Billy Maddison your way

      • I totally missed where the federal government threw that football player in prison for not standing with hand over heart, can you show me that news story?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          I missed where someone stated the government took any action.

          • Capitalism in the US requires silencing dissent and anti-free speech when it comes to a sport player sitting for the national anthem,

            It isn't so hard to see. Since the football player isn't in prison, and no one silenced him, it just follows that you are making shit up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      To be fair we only know one side of the story. Is it that hard to believe that Sarah K. is one of those people that aren't satisfied unless the car unlocks itself magically as she's reaching for her phone to dial the locksmith?

    • What's sad is that was allowed to be in coirt without that loser locksmith being laughed out of court. Hopefully he's being made to pay the court costs and then some

    • Re:"Sarah K" could be also a competitor locksmith (Score:5, Funny)

      by FrankHaynes ( 467244 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:27PM (#52875505)

      Entirely possible.

      But I have to wonder about reviews that I encounter about 10% of the time that are so outlandish that they can't possibly be true: "I ordered a mocha latte, but received a plain black coffee. And I waited 45 minutes for it!!11!!1" SRSLY?? You waited 45 minutes for a cup of coffee without saying anything or taking any action to speed things up?? Sure, that's entirely believable!

      Or hotel reviews of the form: "The people at the check-in desk were very rude and ignored all of our requests. The bed was pilled to the ceiling with human feces and there were roaches completely filling up the coffee dispenser. We only stayed 5 days instead of our originally planned 6 days."

      The problem with Yelp is that the buttons for rating reviews only allow for positive/upvotes. When there's obvious garbage there's no way to vote it down other than to report it, which I doubt does any good.

      tl;dr Yelp is only moderately useful. Read reviews with a critical eye.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Seriously your time is money. Why the fuck would you provide free consultancy to companies providing shitty service, fuck em. Let them rot with their crappy service and write a really, really harsh but true review (well more than one not on the same site, that is bullshit trolling, but on multiple sites, that's fair and reasonable and ensure as many people as possible are warned off), it's much more fun than providing free consultation services. How dare you demand that not only do I have to pay for crappy

        • Wow. I think you might be missing the point of reviews.... which are to help others by either describing your use cases or why the product/service did or didn't live up to your expectations. Others find these things useful. You have probably found reviews useful yourself when making a purchasing decision...

          You probably have a shotgun trap attached to your front door....

      • You get 5 stars or 1 stars far too often on yelp. Too many wannabe critics out there think it's either about being witty in your putdowns or glowing in your praise.

        • Everything is a popularity contest. Look at how people speak in popular videos from YouTube, there's a lot of quick cuts and "psshya" lines.
      • The real problem with yelp is that it exists.

    • Perhaps related to Jeff K?

  • Yelp is hardly innocent when it has extorted businesses in the past.

    http://archives.sfweekly.com/foodie/2014/09/05/yelp-now-has-court-permission-to-change-business-ratings-for-money-dont-forget-it

    • Re:Courts protecting corps with deep pockets again (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:36PM (#52875581)

      The question before the court was "Is Yelp liable for a user's review?", not "Is Yelp a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?".

      And the answer is "No, of course they fucking aren't". That answer is true even if/though some of Yelp's business practices are shady.

      This isn't a case of "courts protecting corps with deep pockets", it's a case of "courts correctly ruling on the law as is their job". The fact that Yelp was on the winning side doesn't change that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The court ruling there is merely that it's not illegal for Yelp to be biased in itself. Nor did the article identify any specific bias.

      However, if they advertised that they were unbiased, and it were discovered and provable they were, then someone could successfully sue them for false advertising if it can be argued it hurts their business.

      For example, Restaurant B suspects that Restaurant A bribed Yelp for a better rating, Restaurant B could then also bribe Yelp, document that its ratings went up without

      • If I understand the law correctly (IANAL), Yelp isn't liable for what reviews people submit as long as they don't exert any sort of editorial control, aside from things like community standards. If I understand Yelp's actions correctly, Yelp does exert such control, at least when paid for it. I don't see why Yelp shouldn't be held liable for libel that they publish, if they publish at their own discretion.

  • sign away your rights (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My dentist makes me sign an agreement that I will not give negative reviews as a condition of receiving treatment. I held my nose and signed it, figuring that I could always post anonymously if I had something bad to say. However anonymous reviews don't carry the same weight as reviews with a name attached.

  • Justice Aborted (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:40PM (#52875617)

    Yelp! regularly takes down long, well thought-out reviews of companies – yet they leave three-liner one-star ratings of the same company up despite protests of unfairness.

    Yelp! has been caught accepting payola before.

    How this pay-to-play environment is supported by such a weak "star-rating" argument is beyond my comprehension.

    Yelp! shakes down companies that want to suppress negative reviews. And on the flip side – someone with an axe to grind can get Yelp! to take down the only coherently written reviews, by people with many reviews under their belt, while leaving-up one-star ratings by fob accounts with ZERO reviews prior to that single one.

    Yelp! is a racket. As in racketeering.

    • No, justice served (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Assuming that everything you said about Yelp is on thousand percent true...so what? None of those issues were the point of this court case. It was specifically about whether Yelp is responsible for content posted by its users, which it absolutely is not.

      I promise you, you really don't want courts to ignore the law and just rule based on who seems to be the "bad guy".

      • Assuming that everything you said about Yelp is on thousand percent true...so what? None of those issues were the point of this court case. It was specifically about whether Yelp is responsible for content posted by its users, which it absolutely is not.

        Actually, that's NOT what the court case was about. If it were, the suit would have been tossed without even surviving an intro hearing, since the CDA grants broad immunity for that sort of thing. (Even the summary here notes that this was settled in previous rulings.)

        What this suit was about was a lawyer trying to make an end-run around that immunity by claiming that Yelp's contributions to the star-rating system (not the reviews themselves) could constitute libel. (Also, the lawsuit claimed some sor

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by eWarz ( 610883 )
          Of course. Everyone accuses yelp of manipulating reviews...but nobody has actual evidence of it. I have just as much hatred of bullshit companies as the next guy, but manipulating reviews would actually run afoul of federal law. A certain other company I shall not name actually DID pull the bullshit mentioned above...and they had to settle a very expensive lawsuit behind closed doors.

          • Of course. Everyone accuses yelp of manipulating reviews...but nobody has actual evidence of it. I have just as much hatred of bullshit companies as the next guy, but manipulating reviews would actually run afoul of federal law. A certain other company I shall not name actually DID pull the bullshit mentioned above...and they had to settle a very expensive lawsuit behind closed doors.

            I do.

            I print to paper and/or PDF when I post or read important things.

            PLEASE provide me more detail on the federal agency that this other company ran afoul of, and to which department thereof that the complaint was submitted to. I have seen them do it.

            PLEASE also provide further information of the specific case that you mentioned (by PM, if necessary).

            Yelp! actively engages in the payola game. I know BOTH sides of a current review-alteration campaign on Yelp!. The power of subpoena can gain a lot of evid

    • Restaurants and retail businesses should get together and start an anti-Yelp campaign. Come up with a sign you put in the front window of your restaurant -- "We don't pay Yelp for advertisements because we don't think Yelp is fair in their reviews of businesses. As a result you may find that Yelp displays overly negative reviews of our business. We don't care and we don't think you should either."

      Once a high percentage of businesses display that in their window, people will get the message and lose inter

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cdrudge ( 68377 )

        Such a campaign can backfire.

        "What's this Yelp website this sign advertises? Oh. Wow. This restaurant has awful reviews. Lets find somewhere else to go eat."

      • If I see that sign, I'm going to wonder just how bad the restaurant is that they are dissing review sites, even if they only name one, and go elsewhere.

      • Or, your business could ask for negative reviews.

        "Richmond restaurant encourages bad Yelp reviews":

        http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.co... [sfgate.com]

      • The whole point is to encourage *everyone* to show the sign so this handles the "Only our restaurant is bad" concern.

        To facilitate this, title the sign "Businesses Against Yelp", or "Proud to be part of the Businesses Against Yelp" (some clever acronym).

        And have a "Learn more" or "What you can do to help stamp out Yelp" action link.

      • Restaurants and retail businesses should get together and start an anti-Yelp campaign. Come up with a sign you put in the front window of your restaurant -- "We don't pay Yelp for advertisements because we don't think Yelp is fair in their reviews of businesses. As a result you may find that Yelp displays overly negative reviews of our business. We don't care and we don't think you should either."

        Once a high percentage of businesses display that in their window, people will get the message and lose interest in Yelp.

        The Comedy Central show, South Park did an episode on this exact topic a season or two ago.

        In the end, Yelp! reviewers were given special "mayor-awarded" pins or T-shirts. (I am presuming it was so that restaurants would know to wipe their steaks on their asses before cooking them.) LOL

  • This makes a lot of sense. As long as they initiate no manipulation on the ratings it should be considered neutral and not their problem. If they ever show themselves to have manipulated the ratings or reviews for anyone, they should lose that protection.
    • see post above. Yelp has been caught removing reviews that don't help their sales people and promoting paying customer's good reviews to the first page. If you ask me they're exercising editorial control. What gets me is these websites always go after the libel angle exclusively. I'm guessing because libel suits are cheaper to bring and the lawyer's hoping for a settlement. But a company like Yelp couldn't survive if they lost even one of these suits.

      One thing I don't see Yelp doing is going after big t
  • the business model. If you want good reviews, you have to pay Yelp. Don't these people understand the system?
  • You're Not Yelping!
  • What's Yelp again? Last time I used it, I posted that a restaurant had health violation convictions in court according to the health inspector's web site. Those comments were apparently not relevant to the diners and removed. Uninstalled Yelp that day.

  • yelp reviews of yelp:

    https://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-... [yelp.com]

    Many of the negative yelp reviews are under "not recommended".

  • FTS:

    Online review site Yelp's star rating system does not make it responsible for negative reviews of businesses because it is based on user input, ... Under federal law, the decision said, Yelp is not liable for content its users post...The appeals court said distributing the content does not make Yelp the creator or developer of the content

    So my question is, how long before we can expect this ruling to be applied to torrent aggregators? When will KAT get their domain and database back? Will the feds issue an apology?

    Seems just a bit two-faced to me. Oh, right, $$ == per^H^H^Hprosecution. Guess the locksmith just didn't have the green to buy the 'right' ruling...

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