Are anonymous reviews on the way out?
Are the days of internet anonymity coming to a close? A recent Federal Court decision suggests so.
Business owners who have long suffered the pain of dealing with anonymous reviews may seriously consider following one panel beater from Sydney’s approach of bringing claims against Google to force it to disclose identifying details of such posts. That in turn, may see review websites crack down on anonymous reviews.
What happened?
The applicant was the manager of Strathfield Autobody, a panel beater in Sydney. Like most small businesses he had a Google “My Business” webpage, which appears on Google Maps. In October 2020, a user posted the following negative review under a pseudonym:
"Very poor work. The owner Andrew is a con man. Promised everything and then reused damaged parts that couldn't be seen easily. Refused to fix the problems. Very unprofessional and unsafe. Stay well away from this con man."
The review was false and had resulted in a loss of earnings for the business. The applicant attempted to obtain data from Google to substantiate the identity of the author, however, the applicants requests were not met. He then commenced proceedings in the Federal Court with the goal of obtaining an order for preliminary discovery that Google disclose details of the user that had made the offending post.
The Court’s power to grant preliminary discovery
When you suffer loss due to the actions of someone you can’t identify, you can try to obtain indentifying information from third parties. Examples include information about the identity of a defendant, their address, and contact details.
When seeking an order for preliminary discovery in instances of false reviews, the Court Rules require an applicant to show:
there may be a right for the applicant to obtain relief against the person who wrote the negative review;
the applicant is unable to ascertain identify the reviewer; and
another person can identify or is likely to identify the reviewer.
In taking a broad approach to the above criteria, Justice Wigney Honour found that the applicant had met the above criteria by establishing grounds to bring a defamation suit against the reviewer to recover loss caused by a downturn in business following the review.
Key points
The requirement of an applicant for preliminary discovery to prove that there may be a right to obtain relief is not a heavy burden provided that the action is based on a known cause of action where there is at least a real, not fanciful, prospect of success.
Where an applicant can show an arguable case that a review or post, while published on a Google business page is defamatory to them personally, they will meet the requirements of the Court rules.
In short, most businesses who receive negative review from anonymous users will probably have grounds to seek preliminary discovery against the website that hosts the review.
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The above article was written by Pippin Barry (BA, JD, 2012 - The University of Melbourne), an Australian Legal Practitioner.
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