Yelp

In an unusual turn of events, a woman in Virginia has been charged with defamation because of negative reviews of a local contractor that she posted on Yelp and Angie's list. Recently, Virginia ruled that Yelp must reveal the identities of seven anonymous Yelp users, because they left negative reviews and the court could not verify (without their identities) whether or not they had ever actually been customers of the business in question. The judge ruled that if the reviewer never in fact conducted business with the establishment, then their review was based on false statements and therefore not protected by the first amendment because "there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact".  The woman, Perez, wrote negative online reviews about a contractor, Christopher Dietz, accusing him of trespassing, stealing jewelry, doing a poor job in her condo and billing her for uncompleted work. While Dietz filed suite against Perez for $750,000 in damages to cover lost business and Perez's unpaid bill, interestingly, the jury actually found both Perez and Dietz guilty of defamation, due to her reviews and his public responses to the reviews. Neither party was awarded any damages, so the battle as it concerns the two essentially ended in a draw. The issue that has Yelper's around the country worried though is the fact that the case was taken to court in the first place. As Eater.com points out, the case has now set a precedence for future disputes, leaving Yelp users wondering if their negative reviews could get them into legal trouble. Yelp chimed in on the issue with an official blog post, reassuring Yelpers that the company is passionate about free speech, and pointing out that many other states have laws in place that provide additional free speech protection. Businesses have been putting increasing pressure on law makers, and Yelp, in recent years, and many have begun filing suits similar to the Virginia case. Yelp's user base has been growing, and more and more consumers are looking to the service to provide them with crowd-sourced information about businesses. The nation has increasingly been facing a variety of legal issues along the same lines, as technology advances, the applicability of older laws becomes less concrete. It's becoming clear that some policy changes are in order, to better reflect the ways in which we communicate and do business. Restauranteurs and consumers, what do you think? Should Yelp be required to reveal the identity of users who post negative reviews, or does the First Amendement extend to online speech without exception? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. Source: Eater.com, Image Credit (Michael Dorausch)