Can I Be Sued for a Google Review
Having suffered some terrible product or service, there is something darkly satisfying most publishing a scathing online review. This may non be virtuous or kind, only it tin be cathartic. Nevertheless, if your online review is disparaging of a person'due south reputation, that person could sue you for defamation.
The ascension of the keyboard warriors
Keyboard warriors like me have benefited from an explosion in the number of review websites and apps in recent years. These cover everything from food, to travel, to medical professionals.
Platforms like Facebook and Google make information technology very easy to leave a scathing online review. Mobile technology enables customers to vent, or compliment, even while they are all the same in the shop.
Review websites go along consumers informed while letting the marketplace know what works and what does non. In extreme cases, consumer reviews tin can even motion corporate giants to change their policies.
For those on the other side of the equation, online reviews can be terrifying. I know from experience – bearding student evaluations are part and parcel of being a university lecturer.
Bad reviews can be disastrous for small businesses. Understandably, some reviewees will be motivated to silence negative reviewers. In farthermost cases, they may even go to court.
You lot can be sued for a scathing review
In Commonwealth of australia, freedom of speech is not every bit costless equally some might call up – even when "spoken" on the internet. Although nosotros take an implied freedom of political communication in our constitution, nosotros practice not have a US-way right to free voice communication. Defamation law places significant limitations on our freedom of voice communication.
Courts take the power to force a person to remove content from the cyberspace, or pay damages to the plaintiff for harm done to their reputation. Failure to comply could mean prosecution for contempt.
Professional reputation is highly valued past defamation law. Damages can exist pregnant if defamation causes an actual loss of business organization, or even a loss of opportunity. In the absence of proven economical loss, substantial "general" damages may nonetheless exist awarded equally a alleviation for hurt and distress.
Baca juga: Social media and defamation law pose threats to gratuitous speech communication, and information technology's fourth dimension for reform
When defamation occurs online, damages awards may increment to account for the "grapevine effect": the manner salacious content tends to be shared and repeated on the internet.
Yet, there are a couple of barriers that could make information technology harder to sue.
Firstly, some "persons" cannot sue. Under Commonwealth of australia'southward compatible defamation laws, certain corporate bodies – that is, companies – practice not have a cause of action in defamation. Unlike overseas, large companies like McDonald's can't sue nether Australian defamation police, but this does not apply to not-for-profits, or small businesses with ten employees or less. Hotheads should proceed with caution before slagging off their corner café.
Secondly, a review must identify a person directly or indirectly in order for someone to be able to sue for defamation. A generic Facebook bluster about "how bad restaurants are in blah suburb" volition not encounter the requirements of "identification".
These barriers are not insurmountable. In 2014, a group of restaurateurs were awarded more A$600,000 in damages for a defamatory review in The Sydney Morn Herald. Fairfax stood by the critic who fabricated the harsh review, which remained online for years. While the average bluster on Zomato won't cause a restaurant to close downward, this instance illustrates that an expression of opinion about a business tin have very serious consequences.
What to do if you're sued
Have information technology seriously. See a lawyer.
In 2017, Sydney surgeon Munjed Al Muderis was awarded A$480,000 damages for a defamatory online campaign of calumniating reviews by a former patient and the patient'south brother. In that location was no testify of whatsoever medical negligence or wrongdoing, and the size of the damages award was partly attributable to the poor conduct of the defendants – they failed to participate in the proceedings.
Having been served with a defamation claim, a lawyer may advise that you're protected past defences to defamation. For example, a defense is available if your review is substantially true; or if yous have expressed an honest opinion on a matter of public interest, and your opinion is based on proper material.
These defences might allow you to defend a trial, merely they will not necessarily forestall you from being sued. They also come up with practical challenges: for example, the reviewer, rather than reviewee, must bear witness the substantial truth of the publication. While your lawyer is dealing with those challenges, you will be dealing with your lawyer'due south bills. Defending defamation is expensive, fifty-fifty if you win.
What if your review was anonymous?
Not all review platforms crave you to disclose your identity. A recent example is Rate My Boss, a website created by union United Voice, which allows workers to review their employers anonymously. Anonymity makes sense from the workers' perspective.
From the employers' perspective, the anonymity problem may be avoided by pursuing the publishers of the website rather than the reviewer. This is the standard model for a lot of defamation litigation; media organisations will often defend defamation on behalf of their writers.
A disgruntled reviewee may go one stride further and go after the internet giants that link people to defamatory content. These intermediaries accept much deeper pockets and the applied power to prevent something from being accessed. Whether Google should be responsible as "publisher" of its search engine content is virtually to exist tested in the High Courtroom.
Baca juga: Australian courtroom holds Google is responsible for linking to defamatory websites
As for you, the reviewer: if you have been particularly nasty in an anonymous review, the reviewee may litigate to notice out who you lot are. Information technology may exist tricky, but a would-be plaintiff has options: a couple of years agone, film pirates were threatened with the prospect of a court lodge compelling iiNet to reveal their identities in a copyright dispute. The context is different, but the anxiety felt by those Matthew McConaughey fans demonstrates that online naughtiness is not as anonymous as nosotros might recollect.
Play squeamish and none of this matters
If yous play the brawl, not the man; if yous focus on what y'all actually experience, rather than making grandiose claims; and if you focus on the true aspects of a product or service in a harsh merely fair review, y'all are less likely to autumn afoul of defamation law.
Source: https://theconversation.com/before-you-write-that-scathing-online-review-beware-of-defamation-92595
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