5 ms·

I dunno, I'm ok with anonymous reviews, but not false reviews. That's what's being claimed here: that the people leaving the negative reviews were never client

by mig39 13y ago

I dunno, I'm ok with anonymous reviews, but not false reviews. That's what's being claimed here: that the people leaving the negative reviews were never clients of the carpet cleaning company. I can't think of a way to weed out the false ones, though, other than to reveal their names and allow them to be sued.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rosser 13y ago
I'm not sure if there's an entity that could be trusted to do this, but if there were, the court could simply have Yelp release the identities of Hadeed's reviewers, and Hadeed's release its customer list, to the same (bonded, or otherwise contractually/legally obligated to maintain privacy) third party. That third party could then LEFT OUTER JOIN the lists, and release to Hadeed's the identities of any parties that have reviewed, but aren't actual customers, without also disclosing the identities of actual customers who've left legitimate negative reviews. Of course, that might risk revealing the existence of any positive non-customer reviews, and with a company of the sort this one seems to be, I'm not willing to bet that's the empty set. EDIT: phrasing.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Sounds reasonable. I'm not sure how you prove that Hadeed is giving them the complete list, though.
  - nardi 13y ago
    Yeah, that's the problem. Hadeed could just strip out customers that had negative experiences from their list, and then sue those customers for defamation.
    - BeoShaffer 13y ago
      Sorta, IANAL but that would put them into perjury territory which is a huge deal if they get caught. How likely that is depends on how smart they are, but its quite possible. For example, if any of the customers didn't pay in cash thats going to leave a paper trail.
      - icambron 13y ago
        Or has a receipt, or knows some people who could be witnesses for it, or lots of other possibilities. Filing bogus lawsuits is a tried and true intimidation tactic, but perjury is just dumb.
    - gms7777 13y ago
      IANAL, but that seems like it would fall under perjury, and it would be way too easy for them to get caught doing it. It seems like if any of the custumers have proof that they were actually customers (e.g. credit card records), then thats the ball game.
- oakwhiz 13y ago
  What you are describing almost sounds like an opportunity to use a homomorphic cryptosystem.
- tzs 13y ago
  If this were a Federal case rather than a state case, then Hadeed's lawyers could fulfill that role. It is quite common in civil cases for the lawyers for each party to be given access to confidential information of the other party, and they have a legal and ethical obligation to keep it confidential. That includes not sharing it with their client. If the lawyers see that the reviewers were actually customers, and so a defamation suit against them is not justified on the available evidence, the lawyers would have an obligation under Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to not proceed. Rule 11(b) says: ------------- Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances: (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and (4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information. ------------- Lawyers take great care to follow 11(b).
glesica 13y ago
The key fact here, though, is that the business owner provided no evidence that the reviews were false or created by competitors and didn't dispute the claims made in the reviews. Additionally, it appears that the anonymous reviews made claims that were similar to those made by other, non-anonymous, reviews.
- brubaker 13y ago
  Although to be fair they don't know if that case is false if they dont know who it was.
lwan 13y ago
Well it's pretty obvious, isn't it? In order to prove that you were a patron, you can just provide a unique receipt. Yelp can be the anonymizer. Of course, this requires so many additional layers of complexity (e.g. unique codes, local Yelp POS software, etc)that Yelp would never actually use it--it simply increases the barriers for writing a review. I guess the trick is in implementation. Maybe verifying purchases through transaction clearinghouses?
icambron 13y ago
> I dunno, I'm ok with anonymous reviews, but not false reviews. It sounds like you're not OK with anonymous reviews, even true ones, because you support stripping the reviewers anonymity even in the absence of any evidence that the claims are false. If all I need to get your identity is a bald and unsupported claim that you defamed me, then your review doesn't have a right to anonymity whether it's true or not.
- mig39 13y ago
  Yeah, I get that. And I agree with you. But there has to be a mechanism to maintain anonymity without enabling anonymous defamation. I just can't think of one. Maybe he has to file a lawsuit against individual anonymous users first, before their identities are revealed? The reverse of this is that by being anonymous, I can make any claim I want in an online review (he touched me in inappropriate ways!) and there are no consequences. Are there?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
bertil 13y ago
It sounds like it would be simpler for Yelp if they demanded the reviewer to upload a photo of the receipt. Not the most practical, but a service being reviewed could ask it to be necessary, or visible, and suffer the lack of reviews if that’s too much. Certified reviews could have priority. Some receipts have the name of the waiter; Yelp could point out, without naming, that bad reviews all match a former employee.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  In other words, a proof-of-purchase system.
- pmiller2 13y ago
  I don't see how that helps people whose carpets have been held "hostage."
  - bertil 13y ago
    It won't, and that's not the point here. A judge has been asked to prove that seven commentators are actually clients of the service — otherwise, said comments were slander. He or she can't ignore that; more importantly, that accusation is almost systematic from service providers who accuse Yelp of slandering them, presumably with non-existant users, and then racketing them to dismiss said comment (in actually, pay to chose which comment to put first). Having the receipt might help clear common issues: the user got the name of the restaurant wrong, the interaction happened before the owner changed, it happened ‘that night’, etc. This is far from an isolated case: all services from the distributed economy (eBay, AirBnB, Blablacar, etc.) have to handle trust and find appropriate mechanism. There has been cases of good-grade racketing on eBay; AirBnB has proven fairly good so far; BlablaCar name itself is a great example of a non-binary rating. Hence the discussion. If users of that service want to get their good back, a small claims court seems more appropriate than a Hacker News thread.
    - pmiller2 13y ago
      No, the point is that those people can't prove they were customers by presenting a receipt. Should that mean they get to get sued and have to spend time, effort, and money defending themselves in court?
caprad 13y ago
How would the carpet company even know, if they don't have their details?
vl 13y ago
(Well, if only you would read the article) This article specifically talks about the fact that in most states it would be required for them to demonstrate falsity or damages, which they didn't have to do under Virginia law. Without this check such practice can be used to suppress negative reviews since most people wouldn't risk legislation. And then article says that it's most likely unconstitutional and this is why this case is appealed in Virginia Supreme Court.
genericuser 13y ago
If you read the reviews, one of the issues with them is some are from people who had dealings with Hadeed which did not ultimately result in a sale for Hadeed. There are reviewers that state they decided to not have the carpets cleaned after the price change and tactics used. These people if real have a valid opinion of the business from their interactions, however would likely not show up on any customer lists.

by mig39 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rosser 13y ago

I'm not sure if there's an entity that could be trusted to do this, but if there were, the court could simply have Yelp release the identities of Hadeed's reviewers, and Hadeed's release its customer list, to the same (bonded, or otherwise contractually/legally obligated to maintain privacy) third party. That third party could then LEFT OUTER JOIN the lists, and release to Hadeed's the identities of any parties that have reviewed, but aren't actual customers, without also disclosing the identities of actual customers who've left legitimate negative reviews. Of course, that might risk revealing the existence of any positive non-customer reviews, and with a company of the sort this one seems to be, I'm not willing to bet that's the empty set. EDIT: phrasing.

ams6110 13y ago
Sounds reasonable. I'm not sure how you prove that Hadeed is giving them the complete list, though.
- nardi 13y ago
  Yeah, that's the problem. Hadeed could just strip out customers that had negative experiences from their list, and then sue those customers for defamation.
  - BeoShaffer 13y ago
    Sorta, IANAL but that would put them into perjury territory which is a huge deal if they get caught. How likely that is depends on how smart they are, but its quite possible. For example, if any of the customers didn't pay in cash thats going to leave a paper trail.
    - icambron 13y ago
      Or has a receipt, or knows some people who could be witnesses for it, or lots of other possibilities. Filing bogus lawsuits is a tried and true intimidation tactic, but perjury is just dumb.
  - gms7777 13y ago
    IANAL, but that seems like it would fall under perjury, and it would be way too easy for them to get caught doing it. It seems like if any of the custumers have proof that they were actually customers (e.g. credit card records), then thats the ball game.
oakwhiz 13y ago
What you are describing almost sounds like an opportunity to use a homomorphic cryptosystem.
tzs 13y ago
If this were a Federal case rather than a state case, then Hadeed's lawyers could fulfill that role. It is quite common in civil cases for the lawyers for each party to be given access to confidential information of the other party, and they have a legal and ethical obligation to keep it confidential. That includes not sharing it with their client. If the lawyers see that the reviewers were actually customers, and so a defamation suit against them is not justified on the available evidence, the lawyers would have an obligation under Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to not proceed. Rule 11(b) says: ------------- Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances: (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and (4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information. ------------- Lawyers take great care to follow 11(b).

glesica 13y ago

The key fact here, though, is that the business owner provided no evidence that the reviews were false or created by competitors and didn't dispute the claims made in the reviews. Additionally, it appears that the anonymous reviews made claims that were similar to those made by other, non-anonymous, reviews.

brubaker 13y ago
Although to be fair they don't know if that case is false if they dont know who it was.

lwan 13y ago

Well it's pretty obvious, isn't it? In order to prove that you were a patron, you can just provide a unique receipt. Yelp can be the anonymizer. Of course, this requires so many additional layers of complexity (e.g. unique codes, local Yelp POS software, etc)that Yelp would never actually use it--it simply increases the barriers for writing a review. I guess the trick is in implementation. Maybe verifying purchases through transaction clearinghouses?

icambron 13y ago

> I dunno, I'm ok with anonymous reviews, but not false reviews. It sounds like you're not OK with anonymous reviews, even true ones, because you support stripping the reviewers anonymity even in the absence of any evidence that the claims are false. If all I need to get your identity is a bald and unsupported claim that you defamed me, then your review doesn't have a right to anonymity whether it's true or not.

mig39 13y ago
Yeah, I get that. And I agree with you. But there has to be a mechanism to maintain anonymity without enabling anonymous defamation. I just can't think of one. Maybe he has to file a lawsuit against individual anonymous users first, before their identities are revealed? The reverse of this is that by being anonymous, I can make any claim I want in an online review (he touched me in inappropriate ways!) and there are no consequences. Are there?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

bertil 13y ago

It sounds like it would be simpler for Yelp if they demanded the reviewer to upload a photo of the receipt. Not the most practical, but a service being reviewed could ask it to be necessary, or visible, and suffer the lack of reviews if that’s too much. Certified reviews could have priority. Some receipts have the name of the waiter; Yelp could point out, without naming, that bad reviews all match a former employee.

sliverstorm 13y ago
In other words, a proof-of-purchase system.
pmiller2 13y ago
I don't see how that helps people whose carpets have been held "hostage."
- bertil 13y ago
  It won't, and that's not the point here. A judge has been asked to prove that seven commentators are actually clients of the service — otherwise, said comments were slander. He or she can't ignore that; more importantly, that accusation is almost systematic from service providers who accuse Yelp of slandering them, presumably with non-existant users, and then racketing them to dismiss said comment (in actually, pay to chose which comment to put first). Having the receipt might help clear common issues: the user got the name of the restaurant wrong, the interaction happened before the owner changed, it happened ‘that night’, etc. This is far from an isolated case: all services from the distributed economy (eBay, AirBnB, Blablacar, etc.) have to handle trust and find appropriate mechanism. There has been cases of good-grade racketing on eBay; AirBnB has proven fairly good so far; BlablaCar name itself is a great example of a non-binary rating. Hence the discussion. If users of that service want to get their good back, a small claims court seems more appropriate than a Hacker News thread.
  - pmiller2 13y ago
    No, the point is that those people can't prove they were customers by presenting a receipt. Should that mean they get to get sued and have to spend time, effort, and money defending themselves in court?

caprad 13y ago

How would the carpet company even know, if they don't have their details?

vl 13y ago

(Well, if only you would read the article) This article specifically talks about the fact that in most states it would be required for them to demonstrate falsity or damages, which they didn't have to do under Virginia law. Without this check such practice can be used to suppress negative reviews since most people wouldn't risk legislation. And then article says that it's most likely unconstitutional and this is why this case is appealed in Virginia Supreme Court.

genericuser 13y ago

If you read the reviews, one of the issues with them is some are from people who had dealings with Hadeed which did not ultimately result in a sale for Hadeed. There are reviewers that state they decided to not have the carpets cleaned after the price change and tactics used. These people if real have a valid opinion of the business from their interactions, however would likely not show up on any customer lists.