Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

UPDATE****

Thanks to Hakan at Bazaarvoice for pointing out a 2nd libel story for Yelp to contend with. This time its dentist Yvonne Wong who feels the ‘lies’ about her should not be posted on Yelp.

In addition the Eisenberg/Norberg case looks like its reached an amicable conclusion:

On Friday, a San Francisco chiropractor, Steven Biegel, settled a libel case he had filed against a former patient, Christopher Norberg, after Norberg posted a review complaining about Biegel’s billing practices.

Details of the settlement are confidential. Norberg replaced his post on Biegel’s Yelp page with an apology that reads, “A misunderstanding between both parties led us to act out of hand. I chose to ignore Dr. Biegel’s initial request to discuss my posting. In hindsight, I should have remained open to his concerns. Both Dr. Biegel and I strongly believe in a person’s right to express their opinions in a public forum.”

Now back to the original post!

Having very recently posted some comments about the value of user reviews on the UK version of Yelp, I have read with much interest a post by Bryan Eisenberg referring to the US version of Yelp, where one of their users faces a lawsuit for leaving negative reviews of a service provider.

The negative review (make that 2 negative reviews in response to the comments he got back!) was by Christopher Norberg and he is being sued by a San Francisco chiropractor, Steven Biegel.

A couple of quotes from the main article on the San Francisco Chronicle are as follows:

In a case that could chill free speech online, a San Francisco chiropractor has sued a local artist over negative reviews published on Yelp, the popular Web site that rates businesses.

When the chiropractor complained about the review, Norberg replaced it with a new entry a few weeks later that read in part, “I think that he is trying to scare me into removing a negative post (that might explain why he has only positive ones). I believe that he has been harassing me into shutting up, and I feel as a consumer I have a voice and that I can use it on forums made for sharing it, especially when I feel that the experience was unsatisfactory.”

The case raises questions about whether people can use the Internet to express negative feelings about others and also about the long-term viability of businesses like Yelp that publish third-party reviews, even though Yelp – under the federal Communications Decency Act – is not responsible for the content it publishes.

“When people try to pull down unflattering material, it has the absolute opposite effect” of what they intend, he said. “It’s very difficult to silence speakers on the Internet – it’s a culture of people who don’t like those kinds of attempts.”

My views

As you will see in my comments on Bryan’s page I am a big advocate of free speech online (providing people sharing their views have a clear conscience) and our recent partnership we have been putting in place with Bazaarvoice for UCDcommerce is a testament to our views of the importance of allowing users to review, positively or negatively, a company or individual providing a service.

Your Views

• have you ever left a negative review online?
• do you feel you should have the right to leave a negative review?
• when you see reviews which are all 100% positive, does this make you wonder how genuine the reviews are or does it just prove how good the service and/or provider is?
• which sites do you leave feedback and star ratings on, if any?

It would be really good to get some debate going on this subject as its one which plays a vital role in affecting conversion rates of online websites and e-commerce sites.