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Supreme Court Won't Hear a Lawsuit Over Defamatory Yelp Reviews (theverge.com) 70

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case regarding whether Yelp is culpable for removing defamatory reviews from its site, resolving a case that could have affected web platforms' legal protections. Today's list of Supreme Court orders denies a complaint brought by Dawn Hassell, an attorney who requested that Yelp take down false, negative reviews about her practice. This means that a California Supreme Court decision will stand, and Yelp isn't liable for the reviews. The Verge reports: Hassell v. Bird was filed in 2016 as a complaint against one of Hassell's former clients, not Yelp. However, Yelp protested a court order to remove the reviews, arguing that it was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. (Yelp has said it independently removes reviews it finds to be defamatory since they violate its terms of service.) Lower courts disagreed, but in mid-2018, the California Supreme Court ruled in Yelp's favor. Then, the firm of Charles Harder -- a member of President Donald Trump's legal team who's known for high-profile defamation lawsuits -- petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a complaint against Yelp.

Yelp praised the California Supreme Court's decision last year, calling it a win for "those of us who value sharing one another's opinions and experiences" on the internet. It commended today's decision as well. "We are happy to see the Supreme Court has ended Hassell's efforts to sidestep the law to compel Yelp to remove online reviews. This takes away a tool that could have been easily abused by litigants to obtain easy removal of entirely truthful consumer opinions," a spokesperson told The Verge.

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Supreme Court Won't Hear a Lawsuit Over Defamatory Yelp Reviews

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  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @05:00AM (#58006780)

    ...that even the Supreme Court hates lawyers.

  • "I want this meal for free or I'll give a bad Yelp review"

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @08:02AM (#58007202)

      That's what Boris, our PR-man, is responsible for.

      He's waiting outside for you to discuss it.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @09:17AM (#58007534)

      Nearly every business will get negative reviews. If people are abusing Yelp to try to bully businesses in large numbers, it just means the quality of Yelp as a resource diminishes, and people will stop using it.

      I know some business owners have thin skins and cannot take criticism well, and oddly enough when a business owners feel the need to defend themselves too much from a bad review. The criticism is probably justified. Because their EGO is too much to see the problems in front of their face.

      But nearly every place will get a bad review. Because everyone has different taste. The food is too spicy, or the food is too bland. could be from food that taste the same from two different reviewers. Also every employee will have an off day, so their service isn't up to what it normally is. And often the reviewer may have different expectations in service. I am not going to a restaurant called the "Pig Pit" and expect 5 star dining experience, but I will want some darn good BBQ Ribs, and access to paper towels to clean myself.

      • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @10:01AM (#58007818) Journal

        > the quality of Yelp as a resource diminishes, and people will stop using it.

        Which reviews Yelp chooses to show is based on whether or not the business pays Yelp, so it's already complete bull. Yet people still use it. Presumably they are unaware that it is strictly an advertising platform.

        If you want to see for yourself, post a review of business that doesn't exist, one you completely made up. Include the phone number of the "business" (your phone number). Enjoy talking to the Yelp thugs^H^H^H^H salespeople when they call you.

      • People are far more likely to run to the computer and give a bad review than a good one. And this is independent of deliberate fraud.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Aka marketing, PR, the vast majority of all reviews online, and other forms of legalized fraud.

    When will the first marketing company go to prison? In its entirety.

    • by necro81 ( 917438 )

      When will the first marketing company go to prison? In its entirety.

      How do you propose to send Yelp, for instance, to prison "in its entirety"? Not to be too pedantic, but you can't send an incorporeal entity like "a company" to prison. I understand the desire (I would even advocate a corporate death penalty in some cases), but it's a physical impossibility. This has both positive and negative effects in our corporation-heavy reality, but there it is.

      • How do you propose to send Yelp, for instance, to prison "in its entirety"? Not to be too pedantic, but you can't send an incorporeal entity like "a company" to prison.

        Bad companies are made of bad people.

        • by necro81 ( 917438 )

          How do you propose to send Yelp, for instance, to prison "in its entirety"?

          Bad companies are made of bad people.

          You are advocating that we hold workers at a company - probably the corporate officers in the C-suite - personally liable for the company's bad behavior. That is not an unreasonable position, and definitely one that I wish prosecutors availed themselves to more often. However, sending members of a company off to prison is hardly the same thing as imprisoning the actual prison, which is the the

          • You are advocating that we hold workers at a company - probably the corporate officers in the C-suite - personally liable for the company's bad behavior. That is not an unreasonable position, and definitely one that I wish prosecutors availed themselves to more often. However, sending members of a company off to prison is hardly the same thing as imprisoning the actual prison, which is the the GP suggested. Even if you throw all the employees into prison, the company still exists as an entity.

            Companies decay naturally without any of the people in them working toward them.

    • It's too easy to game the system using positive reviews. It's possible to game it using negative reviews (of your competitors' products), but it's harder to do. And if the reasons listed in the paid negative review are legitimate (e.g. restaurant's seating area is limited and crowded), then it's still useful information.

      In Yelp's case, the negative reviews also make it relatively easy to tell when a company has paid Yelp to scrub its reviews. Yelp doesn't seem to be very discriminating and seems to ju
  • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @06:41AM (#58006982)
    Or you can bribe a judge to award the case in your favor. I think Yelp is cheaper though.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @07:32AM (#58007096)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • And is it OK for Yelp to promote and emphasize defamatory reviews if the venue hasn't paid Yelp and they're engaged in 'convincing' them to sign up? I've read more than one allegation that when the sales team meets resistance - suddenly there are bad reviews right at the top that could be fixed if you just sign here...
    • Re:And that's fine.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @09:22AM (#58007566)

      So long as Yelp must remove reviews that were ruled to be defamatory. If they don't, then S230 needs to be reformed because no platform should have a right to keep defamatory reviews up after they've been ruled as such in court.

      Agreed in principle. That said, there is an interesting (read: sneaky) set of cases [washingtonpost.com] around this principle [shootingth...enger.blog].

      1. Plaintiff goes to "reputation management" company to remove bad reviews
      2. Reputation management company recruits someone to be the defendant
      3. RMC sues the 'defendant', which then admits to making the post (they didn't) and that it was defamatory (maybe it was) and settles for a small sum. This suit, however, isn't the point
      4. RMC goes to Google/Bing/Yelp with the court order now that it has been "ruled defamatory". By policy, many will remove or de-index it.

      For one, the human capacity for ingenuity is astounding. Using a straw defendant to get a court ruling to satisfy Google's policy of "we will remove anything a court has found defamatory" is pretty next-level thinking. The courts are happy to vacate those orders when someone shows up with proof of the fraud (and more, some of the companies were fined $100K or so), but that requires someone to notice and investigate. Prosecutors sometimes catch wind too and can bring charges, but again that requires it being brought to their attention. Legal gadflies might do this pro-bono (and to rightfully troll the RMCs), but that's hardly a foolproof system. Ultimately, I don't have much of a good answer. Yes, Google and Yelp should de-index material when it has been found defamatory in a fair court case. How Google and Yelp are supposed to assess whether the court order is the product of fraud or not, when they get thousands of them is beyond me . . .

      • "RMC sues the 'defendant', which then admits to making the post (they didn't)"

        Your plan is to find people willing to knowingly lie to a court about something that could be fairly easily provable. That just turned a civil case to a criminal one and that 'defendant' could potentially face years in Federal prison for fraud, lying to the court, falsifying evidence, and likely more.

        I agree "the human capacity for ingenuity is astounding", but good luck finding someone willing to risk prison to protect some busin

        • It actually happened, so there is at least an existence proof that someone had good luck finding a straw defendant.

          Facts do be like that sometimes.

  • This is probably a key question the court really should
    1) take up
    2) issue an expansive ruling on

    We really need to nail down just exactly when you are a publish responsible for the content editorial or otherwise in your publication and when you are a platform

    The present body of the law is IMHO a bit ambiguous. We have a number of giant concerns that grew up by being platforms but increasingly adopt behaviors that are more and more publication like while still claiming their protection as platforms. They the

    • This is probably a key question the court really should
      1) take up
      2) issue an expansive ruling on

      Refusing to take on a case doesn't necessarily mean the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court's opinion. If the case brings up new issues (as this one seems to do), they will often refuse to take the case simply to allow more time for other courts in other districts to get similar cases. Unless it's a time-critical issue (e.g. the 2000 Florida recount in the Presidential election), the Supreme Court does

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        I agree with all that. But my problem at this point is that we HAVE a problem. This platforms constitute and emergency for our society. I think a lot people don't realize how serious a problem this actually is right now.

        Its a frog in the pot, type situation. We have got used to this stuff over time. If you plucked someone out of 2008 and showed them the events of 2016-19 so far they'd be be shocked at how web 2.0 is used and its impacts on our society and individuals. Yet by 2k8 web 2.0 was pretty well

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. -- T.H. White

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