Court: Consumers have the "right to bad reviews", and businesses should tolerate reviews that seem "unfriendly"
Checking reviews, especially "bad reviews", is the habit of many people when they consume online.
Some merchants often blame their peers for malicious slander, and even take a lawsuit to ask review sites to delete their reviews. Will they be supported by the court?
A few days ago, the Suzhou District People's Court heard a special case of reputation right dispute, and the court finally rejected the merchant's request to delete the comment.
The judge of the case said that he hoped that the merchants could correctly view and understand the negative reviews, rather than increase the positive reviews by deleting the negative reviews.
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Wan Chengyuan
Correspondent Shen Gaoxuan
The merchant received a negative evaluation, believing that it was maliciously slandered by its peers
In May 2021, an anonymous user posted a review on a wedding planning merchant page of a consumer review website and rated it with three and a half stars.
The user said in the comments, "This place is really a bit of a corner. The elevated side next to it has to go around backwards and forwards. You can't turn right and you end up being stopped by the uncle jc (police), pulled over and parked, got a ticket and broke the money..."
The merchant replied on the page: "The merchant is often criticized maliciously. I don't know whether the user is a real customer. I hope to inform the contact information. The location of the store is still easy to find, and you can reach it directly by following the navigation."
After that, the merchant complained to the consumer review website that this evaluation was a malicious bad evaluation by its peers, and asked to delete it.
After review, the website believes that this review cannot be identified as a "competitive negative review" issued by a commercial competitor for the purpose of malicious slander, and rejects it.
The merchant operating company then sued the consumer review website to the Suzhou Court of Suzhou, requesting that it be ordered to delete the content that allegedly infringed its reputation.
The company believes that the purpose of setting up the merchant review module on the consumer review website is to allow consumers to evaluate the services and products in the process of consumption. The anonymous user does not actually consume there, and the content of the review has nothing to do with the services and products it provides. , which is what happened during the driving process before eating, and a small part of it is commenting on the pre-sale introduction service it provides for free.
There are many biased words and derogatory content in its comments, which are easy to cause misunderstandings by other consumers.
Court: Insufficient evidence and there is a way to respond, dismiss the petition
"The focus of the case is whether the anonymous user's behavior of posting comments constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's reputation."
After hearing, the Suzhou Court held that from the content of this evaluation, the anonymous user was only evaluating the traffic environment near the store and the pre-sale introduction service provided by the store. After the review website backstage review, it has not been determined to be a competitive negative review.
Therefore, the wedding planning business management company claimed that the review infringed its right of reputation without providing direct evidence to prove that the review was maliciously negative by peers. The evidence was insufficient, and the court did not recognize it.
At the same time, the court held that the consumer review website, as a platform that provides information channel services and information services for online users, should provide consumers with a way to evaluate the products sold or the services provided on the platform.
In the event that it cannot be determined that the comment is a malicious negative comment or constitutes infringement, it did not delete it at the request of the plaintiff company, and did not violate the law to constitute an infringement, and it also provided a way to publicly respond to the comment concerned in the case. .
Accordingly, the Suzhou court found that the wedding planning business operation company's request to provide user information, stop infringement and compensate for losses lacked factual and legal basis, and did not support it.
The court finally dismissed the plaintiff's claim.
Judge: Businesses should tolerate reviews that seem 'unfriendly'
"Consumers have the right to criticize merchants' products and services." The judge who undertook the case said that in today's rapid development of e-commerce, the importance of user evaluations is beyond doubt.
However, the ratings and comments given by consumers are often based on comprehensive factors such as the quality of the product, whether the physical object is consistent with the description of the merchant, the merchant's service attitude, and express delivery services. Therefore, the ratings and comments made by consumers may indeed be subjective. There is even a certain difference from objective facts, but as long as this subjectivity does not exceed the scope of ordinary people’s usual behavior and is not based on subjective malicious purposes, merchants should tolerate the seemingly “unfriendly” evaluations made by consumers.
"I hope that while ensuring consumers' reasonable 'right to bad reviews', merchants can correctly view and understand bad reviews, and gain the understanding and trust of consumers through active communication, improving services and timely feedback, rather than deleting bad reviews. To achieve the purpose of controlling negative reviews and increasing positive reviews." The judge said that excellent products and high-quality services are the foundation for businesses to remain invincible in the market.