The Virginia Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that Yelp must reveal the identities of seven anonymous individuals who wrote negative reviews of a carpet-cleaning business.
Hadeed Carpet Cleaning claims they could not match seven posts on the business review site to actual customers. Courthouse News explains, “The business sued the John Doe authors of seven critical reviews and subpoenaed Yelp to learn the identities of the anonymous reviewers. Yelp repeatedly refused to respond to it, however, leading the trial court to hold Yelp in contempt.”
The case reached the state appeals court, which ruled 2-1 that Yelp cannot conceal the users' identities. "...
Those reviews can really hurt a business. I sold a car to a lady who's transmission went out about a year later (and 18k miles), when I wouldn't agree to pay for it she gave me a bad review that was full of lies. The car was 9 years old with 130k miles when she bought it as is. I then started giving out free oil changes to anyone who wrote an honest review and I diluted her bullshit and pushed her review way down the list. As a consumer I like reviews but as a business owner, they suck because chicken shit cowards can lie up a storm and there isn't a thing you can do about it.
The left is angry because they are now being judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
