5 ms·

The precedent this sets is interesting. From my interpretation, a business must request reviews from all customers, via all methods, for each platform, in order

The precedent this sets is interesting. From my interpretation, a business must request reviews from all customers, via all methods, for each platform, in order to not be considered ‘manipulating consumers’. This will have impacts for all the saas review management products, as their key selling point is usually: get more reviews from your happy customers, or stop your unhappy customers posting reviews. Which is usually done by targeting or omitting either group. Any Australian business using such product would now be on the hook.

tomglynch 8y ago
I think it is just, if you are to request reviews, then you should request reviews equally from all customers.
paxy 8y ago
> From my interpretation, a business must request reviews from all customers, via all methods, for each platform, in order to not be considered ‘manipulating consumers’ There is definitely room for broader enforcement of this judgement, but I don't think your interpretation is correct, especially the "via all methods, for each platform" part. For this specific case, the practice of selectively sending email addresses for 'Review Express' is explicitly considered fraud under TripAdvisor's terms of service (scroll all the way down https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/w789 https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/w789 and https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-us/articles/200615037-What-is-considered-fraud- https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-us/articles/2006150...), so I imagine this made the court's decision easier.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Yeah, I'm hoping there was just some info missing from the article, but this decision seems all sorts of fucked up. All Trip Advisor Review Express really does automate the process of requesting reviews on Trip Advisor. It's not much harder to just email out requests to guests yourself. So is this decision saying if you only emailed requests to people who thought would give you a good review, but not a bad review, that you are guilty of something? If so, literally 99% of businesses would be guilty of this. When someone calls to complain, every business tries to handle it in house. It's not like they say "Oh, I'm sorry you had a bad experience, let me get you the contact info for BBB so you can complain to them, and be sure to post a bad review on our Facebook page!" What about all those apps that pop up a dialog that says "Do you love our app?" and if you say yes it takes you to the app store, and if you say no it shows an internal complaint dialog?
- anilgulecha 8y ago
  > So is this decision saying if you only emailed requests to people who thought would give you a good review, but not a bad review, that you are guilty of something? Yes, given that reviews are assumed-default to be unbiased by consumers, the above procedure leads to biased reviews. We'd all be better off if the above requirement were the default everywhere, to avoid this kind of review-hacking.
- i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
  The EU will go after this next. Technically it is a deceptive thing to do.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t see what’s so bad about this. Just because 99% of businesses do it doesn’t make it ok. Encouraging happy people to leave reviews and discouraging upset people means the reviews aren’t accurate, and you turn them from a useful tool for getting outside opinions into a marketing tool that just benefits businesses at the expense of their customers. I don’t see this as being any different from, say, getting a passing inspection from the health department by manipulating them away from the room where you keep all the cockroaches and rat feces.
flashman 8y ago
I think you're right: Product Review is doing a nice line in politely blackmailing companies to pay for their product to avoid negative reviews on PR's site: "Resolve customer complaints before they are published. When your customers write a negative review, they will be presented with two options: to post it publicly or to resolve it privately."[1] This case ought to give them a bit of a headache. [1]https://www.productreview.com.au/brand-manager/ https://www.productreview.com.au/brand-manager/
- RileyJames 8y ago
  Exactly. I don’t see how that could not be considered manipulative. Most other review product don’t have their own review website, but effectively do the same thing prior to posting to a public review platform (google business, trip advisor, etc). “Rate our product out of 10” where a result of 5 - 10 requests a review and below 5 leads to a “provide us some feedback”. Either action independently is not manipulative (requesting feedback or requesting review) but the combination certainly seems to be.
- elyobo 8y ago
  Yeah, product review are funny. I published a bad review, and was offered money to take it down by the company (and I saw other reviews mention that it had happened to them for the same company). I mentioned it to Product Review and suggested that they look at reviews for that company to see if they'd had a disproportionate number of bad reviews removed and they said it all seemed fine to them...
spauka 8y ago
As other commenters have pointed out below, the issue the ACCC took was not that they didn't request reviews from all customers, but rather that they specifically and actively excluded people who they suspected might have had bad experiences from a program where otherwise all other customers were included. From the ruling [0]: On a weekly basis, Meriton provided TripAdvisor with the email addresses of guests who had stayed at its properties and TripAdvisor sent email invitations to these guests to post a review. However, rather than sending TripAdvisor the email addresses of all guests who had stayed at its properties (other than those who had requested that their details not be provided), Meriton adopted the following two practices: (a) The first practice was to add the letters “MSA” (which stand for Meriton Serviced Apartments) to the front of the email addresses of certain guests. This rendered the email address invalid. This practice was applied to guests who had made a complaint or were otherwise considered likely to have had a negative experience at a Meriton property. I will refer to this practice as the MSA-masking practice. (b) The second practice was to withhold from TripAdvisor the email addresses of all the guests who had stayed at a property during a period of time when there had been a major service disruption (such as the lifts not working, no hot water, etc). I will refer to this practice as the bulk withholding practice. [0] http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2017/1305.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2...

tomglynch 8y ago

I think it is just, if you are to request reviews, then you should request reviews equally from all customers.

paxy 8y ago

> From my interpretation, a business must request reviews from all customers, via all methods, for each platform, in order to not be considered ‘manipulating consumers’ There is definitely room for broader enforcement of this judgement, but I don't think your interpretation is correct, especially the "via all methods, for each platform" part. For this specific case, the practice of selectively sending email addresses for 'Review Express' is explicitly considered fraud under TripAdvisor's terms of service (scroll all the way down https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/w789 https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/w789 and https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-us/articles/200615037-What-is-considered-fraud- https://www.tripadvisorsupport.com/hc/en-us/articles/2006150...), so I imagine this made the court's decision easier.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Yeah, I'm hoping there was just some info missing from the article, but this decision seems all sorts of fucked up. All Trip Advisor Review Express really does automate the process of requesting reviews on Trip Advisor. It's not much harder to just email out requests to guests yourself. So is this decision saying if you only emailed requests to people who thought would give you a good review, but not a bad review, that you are guilty of something? If so, literally 99% of businesses would be guilty of this. When someone calls to complain, every business tries to handle it in house. It's not like they say "Oh, I'm sorry you had a bad experience, let me get you the contact info for BBB so you can complain to them, and be sure to post a bad review on our Facebook page!" What about all those apps that pop up a dialog that says "Do you love our app?" and if you say yes it takes you to the app store, and if you say no it shows an internal complaint dialog?

anilgulecha 8y ago
> So is this decision saying if you only emailed requests to people who thought would give you a good review, but not a bad review, that you are guilty of something? Yes, given that reviews are assumed-default to be unbiased by consumers, the above procedure leads to biased reviews. We'd all be better off if the above requirement were the default everywhere, to avoid this kind of review-hacking.
i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
The EU will go after this next. Technically it is a deceptive thing to do.
mikeash 8y ago
I don’t see what’s so bad about this. Just because 99% of businesses do it doesn’t make it ok. Encouraging happy people to leave reviews and discouraging upset people means the reviews aren’t accurate, and you turn them from a useful tool for getting outside opinions into a marketing tool that just benefits businesses at the expense of their customers. I don’t see this as being any different from, say, getting a passing inspection from the health department by manipulating them away from the room where you keep all the cockroaches and rat feces.

flashman 8y ago

I think you're right: Product Review is doing a nice line in politely blackmailing companies to pay for their product to avoid negative reviews on PR's site: "Resolve customer complaints before they are published. When your customers write a negative review, they will be presented with two options: to post it publicly or to resolve it privately."[1] This case ought to give them a bit of a headache. [1]https://www.productreview.com.au/brand-manager/ https://www.productreview.com.au/brand-manager/

RileyJames 8y ago
Exactly. I don’t see how that could not be considered manipulative. Most other review product don’t have their own review website, but effectively do the same thing prior to posting to a public review platform (google business, trip advisor, etc). “Rate our product out of 10” where a result of 5 - 10 requests a review and below 5 leads to a “provide us some feedback”. Either action independently is not manipulative (requesting feedback or requesting review) but the combination certainly seems to be.
elyobo 8y ago
Yeah, product review are funny. I published a bad review, and was offered money to take it down by the company (and I saw other reviews mention that it had happened to them for the same company). I mentioned it to Product Review and suggested that they look at reviews for that company to see if they'd had a disproportionate number of bad reviews removed and they said it all seemed fine to them...

spauka 8y ago

As other commenters have pointed out below, the issue the ACCC took was not that they didn't request reviews from all customers, but rather that they specifically and actively excluded people who they suspected might have had bad experiences from a program where otherwise all other customers were included. From the ruling [0]: On a weekly basis, Meriton provided TripAdvisor with the email addresses of guests who had stayed at its properties and TripAdvisor sent email invitations to these guests to post a review. However, rather than sending TripAdvisor the email addresses of all guests who had stayed at its properties (other than those who had requested that their details not be provided), Meriton adopted the following two practices: (a) The first practice was to add the letters “MSA” (which stand for Meriton Serviced Apartments) to the front of the email addresses of certain guests. This rendered the email address invalid. This practice was applied to guests who had made a complaint or were otherwise considered likely to have had a negative experience at a Meriton property. I will refer to this practice as the MSA-masking practice. (b) The second practice was to withhold from TripAdvisor the email addresses of all the guests who had stayed at a property during a period of time when there had been a major service disruption (such as the lifts not working, no hot water, etc). I will refer to this practice as the bulk withholding practice. [0] http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2017/1305.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2...