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The Courthouse News Service article [1] is a little more detailed. What stood out to me was the following bit: > The business sued [..] and subpoenaed Yelp to
by mik3y 13y ago
The Courthouse News Service article [1] is a little more detailed. What stood out to me was the following bit:
> The business sued [..] 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.
My first thought was, "Gee, that's either lazy or clueless of Yelp!" IANAL; was there a better strategy for Yelp, presuming they wanted to fight user info disclosure at all costs?
[1] http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/01/09/64385.htm http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/01/09/64385.htm
- dragonwriter 13y ago> IANAL; was there a better strategy for Yelp, presuming they wanted to fight user info disclosure at all costs? When you receive a subpoena that you don't believe is proper, what you are supposed to do is file a motion to quash the subpoena. Ignoring the subpoena is not usually going to go over well.
- dubfan 13y agoInteresting how that was omitted from the article. Given that and the choices of words and phrases made by the author, this article is clearly biased in favor of Yelp.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoAre we reading the same article? It starts by rubbishing Yelp reviews and painting them as extremely unreliable. I don't think that someone biased in favour of a company would be quite so disparaging about the service they provide. You can be in favour of a particular result in a court case for reasons of supporting a particular outcome in general, without any need to be biased in favour of any of the participants in particular.
- NoPiece 13y agoCould the exposed users sue Yelp? It doesn't seem like Yelp fulfilled their duty to protect them if they failed to respond to the subpoena.
- ErsatzVerkehr 13y agoDoes Yelp have any duty to "protect" them?
- TheCraiggers 13y agoMost of the EULAs / privacy agreements that I've bothered reading typically state that they will not share your private info with any 3rd party, but may share it with law officers as part of a criminal investigation. Also, as I understand it, I can sue anybody for just about any infraction- imagined or otherwise. Doesn't mean I would win, of course, but that's beside the point. IANAL, don't use Yelp, have never read their agreements, and don't know if this situation could even be construed to be a criminal investigation.
- Domenic_S 13y ago> may share it with law officers as part of a criminal investigation Isn't this a civil investigation?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- stonemetal 13y ago>We may investigate and disclose information from or about you if we have a good faith belief that such investigation or disclosure is (a) reasonably necessary to comply with legal process and law enforcement instructions and orders, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us Their privacy policy is very easy on the courts.
- objclxt 13y ago> Their privacy policy is very easy on the courts In fairness to Yelp, their privacy policy can hardly say "we won't give your data up in response to a subpoena", because if the subpoena was legitimate they'd be in contempt. Yelp can certainly challenge the validity of a subpoena, but that's not something they would be putting in a privacy policy.