Defend Your Right to Leave Bad Reviews: Stepping Up for TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.

September 21, 2016 | rjmcgarvey | Consumer affairs, Travel

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By Robert McGarvey

 

Many hospitality purveyors want to stifle your right to free speech – especially when you are talking on TripAdvisor and Yelp.

That’s why now it is more important than ever that we assert our right to express opinions about the hotels where we stay, the restaurants where we eat and, if we like, the many travel related vendors we encounter on every trip, from airport shops to limo services.

Those reviews when good help the vendors. When bad,they hurt – and some vendors are hurting back, such as Prestigious Pets in Dallas which sued because a customer for its pet sitting services dissed their service afterwards.  

That company claimed the one-star review caused “irreparable and continued… libelous and slanderous harm” and it sued.

In California, meantime, Hassell Law Group is suing Yelp because a client put up a negative review that the law firm deemed defamatory. Hassell won in Superior Court, it won on appeal, and the matter is now before the California Supreme Court where a galaxy of tech businesses – from Facebook to Microsoft – signed a letter that said the lower court ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” which could “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.”

A long accepted principle of the Internet is that the host – Yelp in this case – is not responsible for the content of user posts.  That principle has allowed user generated content sites to flourish and that begat TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.

Out of them arose much more honest and unbiased reviews – by real people – of hotels and restaurants in particular.

I have long said that where there is a critical mass of reviews – perhaps 50 minimum, maybe 100 – there almost certainly is truth to be found in the totality and that truth, generally, is a lot more honest than what has historically appeared in many publications under the bylines of paid writers.

I am not saying the writers are bribed. Nope.  I am saying I will generally trust 100 citizens who have paid for a room or a meal out of their own pockets more than I will trust a reviewer who may well have been comped.  

Pete Wells at the New York Times is a glorious exception. I trust him, a lot, and would spend my own money on his say so.

But he is an outlier.

In most cases, give me the masses and I’ll let their opinions lead me.

Do I believe all the reviews are true? Nope. Some are written by cranks. Some by would-be extortionists. Some by devious competitors.  Academics who have investigated agree that a significant percentage of Yelp reviews probably are fake.

Similar is probably true at TripAdvisor.

That’s why I have long recommended that readers throw out the really positive reviews, along with the really negative.  Focus in on the middle ground and very probably a kind of truth will emerge in my experience.

And I believe that truth has emerged as a valuable tool in the traveler’s toolset. For us, it can save us money and also – perhaps more importantly – grief and bad times.

Some businesses disagree and the wily ones are inserting a non disparagement clause in their contracts (and who reads a contract with a pet sitter anyway?) – but now Congressional legislation is taking a hard look at those gambits. A bill – co-sponsored by Joe Kennedy in the House – would ban contracts that prohibit negative reviews. That legislation has passed in the House.

Similar legislation last year passed in the Senate.

The bills have to be reconciled, then win approval again in both houses, then go to the President.

“A lot of Americans, particularly in my generation, use those reviews,” millennial Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass told AP. “You look at good reviews and you look at bad reviews and both of those are very important.”

It’s not just the young who swear by reviews. I know plenty of seniors who won’t stay at a hotel before reading TripAdvisor.

Smart.

That’s why it’s my recommendation that you contact your representatives and Senators and urge they help enact this important consumer protection legislation.

While you’re at it, remind the politicians that free speech has been integral to the rise of the Web.

Suing because of a review perceived to be bad – hurtful – just is overkill.

The antidote to a bad review is easy. Get a lot of good ones. Earn them.  If I read 20 reviews that say a hotel is a great bargain and the rooms are spotless – then one that says the place is a dump, which do you think I believe?

Right.

Give consumers some credit for a little intelligence — then deliver great service and you will be rewarded.  It’s that easy.

 

 

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