SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yelp.com is warning that a California lawsuit targeting critical posts about a law firm could lead to the removal of negative reviews and leave consumers with a skewed assessment of restaurants and other businesses. Though its impact is in dispute, the case is getting attention from some of the biggest Internet companies in the world, which say a ruling against Yelp could stifle free speech online and effectively gut other websites whose main function is offering consumers reviews of services and businesses. Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft said in a letter to the California Supreme Court last month that the ruling "radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent" and could be used to "silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech." Yelp says the judge's order violates a 1996 federal law that courts have widely interpreted as protecting Internet companies from liability for posts by third-party users. A federal appeals court cited the law in a Monday ruling saying Yelp's star rating system did not make it responsible for a negative review of a Washington state locksmith business because the overall rating is based on user reviews. The ruling "would really inhibit a website's ability to provide a balanced spectrum of views online and make it more doubtful that people would get the information they need to make informed decisions," said Aaron Schur, Yelp's senior director of litigation.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 6 hours ago.
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