Source: http://internetdefamationblog.com/what_to_do_false_yelp_review/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 11:18:24+00:00

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My favorite example as of late was the plastic surgeon we represented. The woman was not happy with some work he had performed. Fine. If she had taken to Yelp and written that she was unhappy with her face lift, I would have defended her right to post that review. She is entitled to her opinion. But she added to her review the tale of how, when she went to visit a medical malpractice attorney, there were four other women sitting in the attorney’s office. They got to talking, and it turned out that all five of them were all there to sue the same doctor! My god, the man must be a butcher. If there were five patients in that one lawyer’s office on just one day, how many women must be in other lawyers’ offices. She added that she learned from the attorney that this doctor was under investigation by the medical board, and would shortly be losing his license.
But could she identify a single one of the other women? Of course not. Could she even name the medical malpractice attorney who she supposedly visited? Of course not. Had anyone ever actually told her that the doctor was being investigated, or that he was about to lose his license? No. She conceded that it was all made up, as was most of the review. She was so angry at the doctor when she was writing the review that she wanted to make sure no other patients went to him, and felt like an evenhanded review about her experience wouldn’t accomplish that task.
It is this sort of review – one containing verifiably false facts that charge the business with illegal, immoral, unethical, or unprofessional conduct – that can be challenged and removed from Yelp. What follows is a very in-depth review of what you can do when someone posts that sort of false and defamatory review.
First, allow me to get some preliminaries out of the way, and then I’ll move onto the solutions for false Yelp reviews.
Where does Yelp get off even listing my business? I never authorized it to do so! Can I force it to remove my business?
I get asked this question all the time, and the answer is no, so let’s get it out of the way. Callers want to retain me to force Yelp to remove their business listing, to prevent anyone from posting comments about the business. The callers think there is some sort of right of privacy that prevents a website from discussing their business unless the business has authorized it. Would you want to live in a world where you can’t offer your opinions about a business, good or bad, unless the business authorizes you to? That would certainly be a tremendous boon for unethical businesses.
So, no, Yelp can’t be forced to remove your listing. Yelp is free to set up a page for every business in existence so that people can discuss any business. And no, it doesn’t violate any trademark or copyright for them to do so.
Can I sue Yelp directly for the false review?
The answer to this question seems to be pretty well known by now, but I still get calls about it. No, under the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), a website cannot be sued for information posted by a third party. When the internet came along, Congress decided to favor open discussions on the web. Congress wanted website operators to be able to offer the opportunity for website visitors to post comments. It recognized that if website operators could be held liable for the comments posted by visitors, the swift and immediate reaction would be that no websites would offer public forums. Congress created the CDA, which immunizes website operators from ANY liability for statements posted by third parties. That doesn’t change, even if you notify the website that something posted there is defamatory.
In a minute I’ll be discussing the case of Hassell v. Bird, in which the court ordered Yelp to remove a defamatory post. The case is currently being considered by the California Supreme Court, which may hold that Yelp can be named in an action which seeks removal of a defamatory post, for injunctive purposes only, but that remains to be seen.
OK, with the preliminaries out of the way, let’s see what you can do about a false and defamatory Yelp review.
Step One – Decide if you really need to do anything.
A business with 50 positive reviews will likely not be hurt by a single false review. Everyone understands there will always be trolls and background noise, and that no business can make every single customer happy. But a business with only five reviews is in a much different situation. There, a bad review will likely appear on the first page of Yelp’s results, and depending on the nature of the business, many potential customers will simply elect to move on rather than to take a chance on a business with a really bad review.
But with that said, don’t let your ego take over. It may be a real source of pride that you had nothing but five star reviews, and this one false review is driving you crazy, but sometimes it’s best to listen to Queen Elsa and Let It Go.
Your better solution may be to encourage your customers to post more reviews, in order to water down the false review, while perhaps pursuing some of the additional steps that follow.
Step Two – Try to get Yelp to remove the review by showing that it violates its Terms of Service or Content Guidelines.
This is not likely to succeed, but it is a reasonable step, and its chances of success depend on the wording of the review. But first, a little background.
Yelp is not your friend. Yelp’s business model depends on negative reviews, so they are not incentivized to remove false reviews. To give you an idea how far Yelp will go to maintain false reviews, in a recent case (Hassell v. Bird), after determining at trial that a review posted on Yelp was false and defamatory, the judge ordered Yelp to remove the review. Yelp certainly wants only honest reviews, so it must have been stoked to learn that a false review had been discovered so it could remove it, right? Au contraire mon frère.
Yelp appealed the matter to the California Court of Appeal, arguing that it should not be compelled to remove false reviews. After the Court of Appeal ruled against Yelp, it appealed it to the California Supreme Court. That case is now pending. Yes, Yelp has literally taken its right to maintain false and defamatory reviews all the way to the Supreme Court, even though its own Terms of Service state that defamatory reviews are prohibited.
So, don’t think for a second that you will be able to go to Yelp with evidence of a false review, and Yelp will investigate. In a perfect world, Yelp would have some sort of reviewing body to consider such evidence, but I recognize that isn’t feasible. Here’s why.
Let’s say you are an electrician, and after doing a perfectly wonderful job of installing a 220 volt line to a homeowner’s new laundry room, they trash you online because the homeowner’s Uncle Albert told him your work was not up to code. But you have proof that it was up to code, as evidenced by the sign-off from the city and all the receipts you have from Home Depot showing you bought the proper gauge of wire and other parts. You send your evidence to Yelp, assuming they will consider the matter.
How would Yelp review that claim? The fact that the city signs off on work is never proof that it was up to code. The inspector might have missed something. The receipts you have from Home Depot could be for parts from another job. Even if you provided a report from an independent electrician, stating that the work was perfect, how would Yelp test the veracity of that report? You may have paid your Uncle Buck to prepare a false report.
The only way Yelp could confirm your claim with any certainty would be to hire its own electrician, and even that presents a problem. Sometimes even experts can’t agree. I am defending a Yelper right now (while Yelp is evil, the people who post reviews are not necessarily so and sometimes need to be defended), who posted a completely honest review about his accountant, stating that the accountant made a mistake on his taxes. The accountant sued him for defamation, claiming he had not made any mistakes. Our expert said the accountant screwed up, and their expert said he didn’t. Back to our electrician, even if the expert hired by Yelp determined that the wiring was fine, that doesn’t necessarily make is so. Only a vigorous review of all of the facts via the legal process can come close to determining whether the work was up to code.
Obviously Yelp cannot hire an expert every time someone claims a review is false, so we can’t really fault them for failing to do so. The situations that frustrate me, though, are when Yelp turns a blind eye toward obviously false reviews.
Look at the entire mindset of Yelp. When you read a review on Yelp, you are given three choices to rank the review. You can rank it as “useful”, “funny”, or “cool”. It’s as though every review has merit, and all you can do is promote them. Unless the business has a Yelp business account, it can’t respond to the review. On Amazon, by comparison, you are asked whether or not the review was helpful, anyone can comment on the review, explaining why it does not ring true, for example, and following every review is a link to “report abuse”. Best Buy, Walmart, and Newegg are all set up in similar fashion.
Why doesn’t Yelp afford the ability to respond to a review? Isn’t that kind of a no-brainer; to create a dialog between the reviewer, community and the business? Again, it comes down to Yelp’s business model. A business must have a Yelp business account in order to respond to reviews (even to say thanks for a good review).
But with all that said, even though Yelp will fight to the death to maintain a defamatory review, it is sometimes open to removing reviews that violate their Terms of Service in other ways.
Does the Yelp review make clear that the person never actually patronized the business?
Although it’s not specifically listed as a content guideline, it seems that the most common basis that businesses are able to get reviews removed is when it is clear from the content of the review that the poster never actually visited the business.
For example, a doctor who does Botox injections might get a one-star review that states, “Only a crazy, vain person would allow a doctor to inject poison in their face. Accept your frown lines!” That person is not offering any review of the business, but rather is just venting on the nature of the business. Again, however, don’t think Yelp will consider your evidence that the person was never a customer. That fact must be obvious from the wording of the review.
Is the review threatening or invasive?
Can I sue Yelp for failing to follow its own Terms of Service and/or Content Guidelines?
Step Three – Decide if you want to engage with the defamer.
Assuming you know the identity of the defamer, you need to decide if communication will do any good. In the case of an honest, but negative, review, it makes good sense to contact the customer and ask, “What can we do to make this right?” But in the case of a false review, you are dealing with a person who has already shown they lack integrity, since they lied about your business. Too often, that type of person will use the communication against you, returning to Yelp to state that you are now harassing them.
Step Four – Respond with a letter from an attorney.
If you feel that the review must be addressed, a letter from an attorney can be very effective at removing false reviews. This presumes, of course, that the review is from a real customer, and that you can identify the customer. For the reasons already stated, I won’t send a letter to a Yelper, if the review is just opinion. The point of a letter from an attorney is to demand removal of the false review, and I can’t make such a demand if the review is not false.
Step Five – Decide if you want to pursue legal action.
If your efforts to get Yelp to remove the review were unsuccessful, and if the Yelper won’t remove the false review, or you don’t know his identity to make the request, then legal action will be necessary. In order to subpoena the information necessary to identify the Yelper, a complaint must be filed in Superior Court. It is the complaint that provides the subpoena powers. It is usually necessary to first subpoena from Yelp the IP address used to post the false review, and then to subpoena the customer information from the Internet Service Provider that owns that IP address.
Do I need to go through the subpoena process if I know the identity of the person who defamed me?
The plaintiff in an action always has the burden of proof. If you are going to sue the person who defamed you, you will have the burden of proving the identity of the defamer. You may be 100% sure that you know who posted the review, but if the person denies it, what evidence will you be able to prove that he is the one?
People get very creative in their lies when their identity is revealed. In one case, we found that the defamatory posts about our client had been created from the internet account of a terminated employee. He claimed that it just so happened that on the day the review was posted from his home, he had invited a transient to spend the night, and had allowed him to use the computer. He had told the transient about being fired, so he surmised that the transient must have posted the bad review out of anger over the way the employee had been treated. Yeah, the court didn’t buy it either.
It all comes down to the evidence, and whether a trier of fact would determine that it is more likely than not that the defendant is the defamer. If the defamer has corresponded with you, confirming that he posted the review, you probably won’t need to go through the subpoena process.
Will I have to take the case all the way to trial?
Probably not, but it depends on your goals. If you just want the false review removed, just serving the complaint usually accomplishes that goal. There may be some resistance at first, but soon the defendant realizes that there is no justification or defense for what he did, and wants to settle.
If your goal is to recover the damages you suffered as a result of the defamation, then you can anticipate that the case will go much further. No one wants to write a check without a fight. It still probably won’t go to trial – fewer than 15% of cases go all the way to trial – but it may not settle until the eve of trial.
Step Six – Compel Yelp to take down the review.
Until recently, the courts had held that, pursuant to the Communications Decency Act (CDA), Yelp could not be compelled to take down anything posted by a third party. Now, thanks to the holding in Hassell v. Bird, if a court concludes that a Yelp review is false, in conjunction with ordering the Yelper to take down the review, it can also order Yelp to do so, in the event the Yelper defies the order.
I was invited to file a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court on the Hassell v. Bird appeal, and oral argument was just heard. After hearing the argument by counsel for Yelp, it occurred to me that the ruling of the Supreme Court on Hassell v. Bird will likely not impact the ability to include Yelp in a takedown order. Yelp argued that it WANTS to be named in any lawsuit wherein the plaintiff is seeking to have a reviewer remove a defamatory post. Even if the Supreme Court finds that the specific circumstances of Hassell v. Bird did not warrant including Yelp in the takedown order, with its arguments on appeal Yelp has essentially provided a road map to obtaining a takedown order where Yelp is involved. I call this approach The Morris Plan (see what I did there?), and the full details can be found in the very detailed article, The Morris Plan – How to Force Yelp (and other sites) to Remove Defamatory Reviews.
If you are victimized by a verifiably false review on Yelp, where the statements are verifiably false, and you decide to take action to have it removed, call Morris & Stone at (714) 954-0700.
A very alternative approach – Mount your own counter-attack.
I don’t know if I can recommend this technique, since it may get you sued, but I like the poetic justice it affords.
More and more often I am receiving calls from potential clients, wanting me to review the information they have posted online. Since Yelp won’t offer any relief from a false review, the clients have taken matters into their own hands and either posted a review about the defamer’s own business on Yelp, or created a website devoted to the defamer.
For example, a dentist gets a false review from one of his patients, who was perfectly happy with the work, but is using the bad Yelp review in an attempt to extort a refund of the money paid by her dental insurance (it happens all the time, to the point that I think some people get dental work done only because they see it as a source for cash). From his dealing with the patient, the dentist knows that the patient owns a dog grooming business, so he trashes her as well, hoping to create leverage whereby they both agree to remove their reviews.
This technique is unacceptable, unless you happen to have had bad service from the customer. My momma always told me that two wrongs don’t make a right, so I can’t get behind lowering yourself to the level of the defamer, and lying about his business like he did yours. The circumstance where the defamed business owner just happened to have had a bad experience with the defamer’s business would be extremely rare.
But there is a related approach that has some appeal, and I’ve seen it applied successfully.
I recently spoke to a landscape architect (who authorized me to share this story) about what had probably started out as an innocent miscommunication with a potential customer. The customer had called the architect, seeking an appointment. Right off the bat he was put off by the fact that architect said he would charge to create a landscaping plan, but decided to go with him. He asked when they could meet, and the architect said, “let’s chat on Tuesday.” The architect meant that to mean, “call me on Tuesday and we’ll pick a date and time”, but for some crazy reason the customer took it to mean, “I’ll be there on Tuesday,” which made no sense at all since no time was discussed.
So Tuesday comes, the architect never shows, so the customer takes to Yelp to trash him, claiming he waited the entire day for the architect to show, and as a result had to miss a wedding, Bar Mitzvah, and his admission to the Royal Order of the Water Buffalo, or some such nonsense. He added that the architect was completely unethical because he charges to create landscaping plans. When we checked the customer’s Yelp profile, we found that he almost exclusively posts this sort of flaming review. He apparently gets off on harming businesses. The architect contacted the customer to see if they could work it out, but it was clear that he had no interest in an amicable resolution.
Well, the customer had a relatively unique name; let’s call him Baruk Barinda. So the client buys the domain, barukbarinda.info, and creates a website about him, disclosing some entirely accurate and truthful facts Barinda would probably not want to have public, and how he is someone employers and customers should probably avoid given his bizarre behavior on Yelp. Now, anyone who Google’s “Baruk Barinda” will see this website about him in the number one position.

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