If your business sells products online, chances are you’ve received some anonymous negative reviews. Online reviews are intended to better inform consumers about online retailers (and can give businesses feedback), but it can be nearly impossible to please everyone.
Unfortunately for businesses, there’s not much that can be done about negative reviews, other than making product or service improvements. Courts have said that companies must prove that the reviews are libelous in order to have them removed. But in the case of anonymous reviews, which are allowed on plenty of sites, including Amazon, it can be nearly impossible for companies to prove anything.
Such is the case with Ubervita, a producer of dietary supplements. The company has alleged that at least ten Amazon users posted fake and deliberately malicious anonymous negative reviews of its products.
A federal judge in Washington state recently ruled that Ubervita can request information about those users from Amazon. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman wrote:
“Ubervita may serve subpoenas on Amazon, Inc. (or other appropriate Amazon entity) and Craiglist, Inc. (or other Craigslist entity) intended to learn the John Doe defendants’ identities, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, Web hosts, credit card information, bank account information, and any other identifying information.”
What the ruling doesn’t do, however, is automatically remove those reviews from Amazon. Ubervita would still have to prove that the statements are libelous to accomplish that. But proving that an identified person made libelous statements certainly seems easier than proving an unidentified person made libelous statements.
So what this does, basically, is give Ubervita a chance to prove that there really is a conspiracy to give the company a bad reputation online. That might be a lofty aim. But the ruling at least will give Ubervita, and presumably other businesses, an opportunity to investigate reviewers who may have an ulterior or malicious motive.
Whether the reviews will be taken down remains to be seen. In this particular case, Ubervita has alleged that the users took part in a wide array of trolling and disruptive behavior online. So there may be more involved than just proving the information in online reviews is libelous.
But for other business owners, the ruling could mean a better chance of managing their online reputations moving forward. Online reviews do serve an important purpose. So companies shouldn’t be able to dictate what consumers say about them.
But the latest ruling will at least give them a better chance to manage false and defamatory reviews if there are indeed people trying to harm their online reputations.
Frustrated Photo via Shutterstock
Too often people hide behind anonymity. If you’re not willing to say something with your name and face attached to it, you might want to consider not saying it at all (shout out to Thumper’s mom here).
That’s one of the big downsides to the internet. And it can and has caused great harm.
I think, perhaps, if folk who leave horrible comments anonymously knew it could be traced back to them, it might make them think twice before they spew anything.
Annie Pilon
I think that’s true. I understand anonymity in a few select situations, but it definitely seems to be overused and abused online.
Sadly, it’s human nature. When given the chance, and they don’t stand to be effected, some folks choose the ugly route. It’s a bit like being given the ability to be invisible – choosing what to do if you were.
I wonder if there’s any indication that Amazon or Craigslist will comply with the subpoenas? In similar cases (e.g. Yelp) that is where the plaintiff starts to really run up against it, as these companies tend to maintain a zealous commitment to protecting their consumer base and would not likely want us thinking they’ll give up our identities as authors of anonymous reviews so easily.
Annie Pilon
You know, I didn’t see anything about Amazon saying that they will or won’t comply. It will be interesting to see the developments though!
Aira Bongco
It’s nice that there’s a service that can do this. It’s hard to preserve one’s reputation online and a service like this can somehow filter the negative competitor reviews.
Annie Pilon
I’m not sure this would be an option in every situation, but it’s good to know that if there truly are people abusing anonymous online reviews that there’s a potential course of action to take.