Thoughts & Ideas
Yelp must turn over the names of seven reviewers per court’s ruling
The City Court of Alexandria, VA, ruled that online review site Yelp must identify anonymous reviewers who posted negative reviews for a local carpet cleaning business. The owner couldn’t match the reviews with the company database, which was a sufficient reason to assume that the reviewers were not the real customers. According to the court, the First Amendment rights do not cover purposely false statements. The ruling has a potential of changing the practice of online consumer reviews (source).