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This is so interesting! There are so many apps that request reviews, I'm sure a lot only do it when the user seems happy to be using the app. Could they be fine

This is so interesting! There are so many apps that request reviews, I'm sure a lot only do it when the user seems happy to be using the app. Could they be fined? I mean - it's good that they have been fined, but I'm concerned about the precedent it sets! Another thought - how did ACCC find out about this? Someone internal reported it to them?

paulhart 8y ago
The judgement indicates that the issue here was that Meriton was actively preventing people from being asked for reviews in certain circumstances. Very different from someone being asked for a review and choosing not to give one.
- tomglynch 8y ago
  What I am talking about is when an App will sometimes have a popup saying "Love this app? leave a review" with a link. Does this fall under the same issue if the app selectively chooses who to display this pop up to?
  - T-Winsnes 8y ago
    My gut feel on this, is that if you use a metric to infer if you will get a positive review and only show the popup in those cases, you might be in conflict of this ruling
    - tomglynch 8y ago
      This is my feeling too - it's crazy how easy it is to break this law. It will also be very difficult to enforce though.
      - paranoidrobot 8y ago
        If you have enough annoyed off customers that you're running analytics to determine whether they're likely to leave a negative review, and interfering with their ability to leave that review on a third party site - then perhaps you should focus more on fixing your business instead. If you're asking a customer if they're satisfied with the service/product, and then following that up to try and resolve it - that's not misleading or deceptive, that's normal customer service.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    My god, I hope so.
bigger_cheese 8y ago
Someone else linked the Federal court judgement (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...) I had a skim through it. It quotes "Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law provides that a person must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive." From skimming the judgement looks like a whistleblower reported them to ABC (television station) "In October 2015, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation program went to air that raised issues about Meriton’s practices in relation to TripAdvisor." This is probably what led to the ACCC investigation In the court judgement there are internal emails submitted as evidence between executives where they discuss "masking" practice etc. The email evidence is what got them convicted I think it reads to me anyway as pretty irrefutable evidence - they discuss in detail what they were doing and how they were knowingly violating ToS of Trip Advisor.

paulhart 8y ago

The judgement indicates that the issue here was that Meriton was actively preventing people from being asked for reviews in certain circumstances. Very different from someone being asked for a review and choosing not to give one.

tomglynch 8y ago
What I am talking about is when an App will sometimes have a popup saying "Love this app? leave a review" with a link. Does this fall under the same issue if the app selectively chooses who to display this pop up to?
- T-Winsnes 8y ago
  My gut feel on this, is that if you use a metric to infer if you will get a positive review and only show the popup in those cases, you might be in conflict of this ruling
  - tomglynch 8y ago
    This is my feeling too - it's crazy how easy it is to break this law. It will also be very difficult to enforce though.
    - paranoidrobot 8y ago
      If you have enough annoyed off customers that you're running analytics to determine whether they're likely to leave a negative review, and interfering with their ability to leave that review on a third party site - then perhaps you should focus more on fixing your business instead. If you're asking a customer if they're satisfied with the service/product, and then following that up to try and resolve it - that's not misleading or deceptive, that's normal customer service.
- mikeash 8y ago
  My god, I hope so.

bigger_cheese 8y ago

Someone else linked the Federal court judgement (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...) I had a skim through it. It quotes "Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law provides that a person must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive." From skimming the judgement looks like a whistleblower reported them to ABC (television station) "In October 2015, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation program went to air that raised issues about Meriton’s practices in relation to TripAdvisor." This is probably what led to the ACCC investigation In the court judgement there are internal emails submitted as evidence between executives where they discuss "masking" practice etc. The email evidence is what got them convicted I think it reads to me anyway as pretty irrefutable evidence - they discuss in detail what they were doing and how they were knowingly violating ToS of Trip Advisor.