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Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

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Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#3
Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals.

Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate businesses have been seriously damaged by competitors, or just difficult customers writing unfair bad reviews.

Unfortunately the only solution to this I can think of would be a review of reviewers, which would just confound the problem.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#4
post #3

Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals. Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate busin…

we already have laws that deal with this sort of thing (which has been going on in print media for hundreds of years). online reviews are no different

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#5
post #3

Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals. Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate busin…

we already have laws that deal with this sort of thing (which has been going on in print media for hundreds of years). online reviews are no different

Yes, but anonymity on the web makes it much harder enforce these laws online.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#6
post #3

Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals. Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate busin…

Review of reviewers is totally the way to go! It sounds like a "now you have two problems" situation, but it really isn't. Starting from the one reviewer of reviewers you know you can trust (yourself) you can build out to a network of trusted reviewers.

If anyone's interested in working on open source solutions to this problem, feel free to email me. It's kind of my thing:)

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#7
This story has the stench of meltdown on it. Like when Jack Thompson slowly lost his sanity, when Charles Carreon lost his marbles when dealing with The Oatmeal, or basically the entire Rightshaven situation...

I have the strong suspicion that this has the potential to get much uglier and more bizarre. Going after this woman three years after she left her comment is not something that a sane company/legal representative in a good position decides to do.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#8
post #2

As this picks up more media attention, the total number of customers that this will deter will greatly offset the $3,500 fine the company may end up receiving. Karma will prevail.

Sadly the valuable link juice and unintentional promotion from any media outlets that pick it up from this could actually do them better in the long term. Whilst people will soon forgot their appalling behaviour, the search engines don't. At least that's what I have observed in the past, things may have changed since then.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we already have laws that deal with this sort of thing (which has been going on in print media for hundreds of years). online reviews are no different

Yes, but anonymity on the web makes it much harder enforce these laws online.

Computer printers enabling home publishing might make it harder to enforce libel laws, but a shift in enforcement difficulty need not require new laws.

If I invented a new sort of zip-lock baggy that was completely impermeable to smell, that would make the enforcement of several laws more difficult, but should my invention prompt new laws? No, that would be an overreaction.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#10
post #6
post #3

Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals. Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate busin…

Review of reviewers is totally the way to go! It sounds like a "now you have two problems" situation, but it really isn't. Starting from the one reviewer of reviewers you know you can trust (yourself) you can build out to a network of trusted reviewers. If anyone's interested in working on open source solutions to this problem, feel free to email me. It's kind of my thing:)

Yeah, a web of trust style weighting of friends-of-friends-of-friends isn't a bad idea at all. Current social networks doing that sort of thing tend to only care about immediate friends, which is only very narrowly useful. Good luck with your project.
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