Expert online defamation lawyers commenting on the group defamation action being led by KwikChex against TripAdvisor  know that in the USA in particular,  it is difficult to get a result against ‘review’ and ‘feedback’ sites. But in this case,  KwikChex is claiming that there have been abuses that fall outside of the normal defence of ‘user generated comment.’

In an article published by Beth Kormanik of Hotel Interactive.com, the following was stated:

Bill Hart, an attorney with the Manhattan firm Proskauer who specializes in technology issues, said situations similar to the “Hotel Horror” email could be in a “gray area” of the law. In general, sites cannot go beyond publishing user statements without giving up their immunity, he said. If they make conclusions from the reviews, it could be problematic.

and here is another from Jack Lerner, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School

‘The law would not protect sites that edit the substance of a user’s comment or that induce the content.‘

The KwikChex response to the article is “We already have what is the first truly robust defence system against this severe problem that affects both reputable businesses and consumers – but will be going far further – it is our belief that the mistakes that TripAdvisor have made undermine their integrity to such a degree that we can use them to leverage serious change. The fundamental issue is that we have proven you cannot trust TripAdvisor themselves to not produce damaging assertions  unjustifiably against reputable businesses – so how can you trust anything else on their site at present? Or to put it another way – when the saint is caught sinning, all faith is lost.”

Link to the ‘Promote & Protect’ KwikChex All Rounders service for hotels and restaurants

Link to the article on Hotel Interactive.com

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The programme featured one particular case that had been flagged to the BBC by KwikChex – the story of a particularly nasty attack on UK business, Cream Photography – which spiralled into an assault on over 150 photographic and wedding supply companies across the UK. It highlighted how the maligned businesses were struggling to have what was an obvious and vicious spam attack removed from the Google resource.

A KwikChex spokesperson said: “Having the BBC on board will help publicise this serious problem – and we are pleased to have been able to contribute so significantly to the content of the programme. We have been able to help many businesses to restore and enhance their online reputation, including some of those in the Cream Photography case, but the problem is huge and the participation of the media is vital – in fact, even though the BBC have been in contact with Google and they have responded by saying they ‘have software in place to automatically detect spam reviews’, we are just about to submit reports to them about the Cream Photography case, because we have found a dozen businesses that are still suffering from these particular reviews – months after the initial alarm was raised to Google.”

He added: our job is actually to enhance and promote trusted, reputable businesses on the worldwide web – but we are certainly not going to drop the ball on this subject until online review publishers improve their resources to better protect decent businesses and to provide a higher degree of truthfulness to consumers.”

An article about the BBC report is on the Click website

and the full programme can be watched on the internet in the UK on the BBC iPlayer - click here

Or use a Google video search – bbc click fake google reviews

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