Travellers could be sued for hotel rants

[BlueAU]

TRAVELLERS who post scathing reviews or comments about hotels or restaurants could be exposing themselves to long and costly legal battles.

Media lawyer David Poulton, from MinterEllison Lawyers, said people making defamatory comments on sites such Tripadvisor and Twitter have little protection from the websites concerned.
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Source: Travellers could be sued for hotel rants | Travel News | News.com.au

 

[simongr]

Interesting article (though I think we are not meant to quote entire articles).

I tend to post factual information and ensure that when I rant about something I am ranting about something I am legitimately entitled to complain about (we have plenty of new posters here that rant about missing out on entitlements that they dont have).

 

[Dave Noble]

Interesting article (though I think we are not meant to quote entire articles).

Indeed not ( as mentioned in the sticky at top of the forum :http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/community/travel-news/how-post-travel-news-items-17862.html )

 

[drron]

Sorry but my take on this is that it is a beat up based on a lawyers statement.No examples are given of this having occurred.
However we are easy to trace and one hotel certainly found out who drron was after a less than impressive review I did.Was contacted on my personal email.They however apologised,fixed the problem(was a problem with their website) and so I was able to post a follow up comment of praise.This was followed by another email inviting me to have dinner with the GM on returning.
My advice to hotels would be to follow this pathway.

 

[BlueAU]

Sorry Simon and Dave, woops!

Drron, impressive they followed it up.... did you ever return?

 

[Soundguy]

The article sounds like a leach beat-up..... fishing for more work from Hotels and the like.

In my state at least there are laws that prohibit corporations suing individuals but I must say I'm not sure how that plays out on a national or international stage, the internet being very global and all. Somehow I think the adverse publicity for Hotels that are tempted to try this might outweigh any short term advantage....

 

[drron]

I sure did and as I walked to desk I was greeted not by my real name but as drron,accompanied by a broad smile.I had let them know my ETA.

 

[samh004]

If a restaurant or hotel can't deliver then fair's fair that the public will write a bad review, just as if they do deliver, they'll write a good review. You can't choose to only have the good, you get both!

Besides, the article lists defamation several times over, and defamation is slander or libel, which are both false statements. So as long as you keep to the facts, where's the issue?

 

[Dave Noble]

Besides, the article lists defamation several times over, and defamation is slander or libel, which are both false statements. So as long as you keep to the facts, where's the issue?

The main issue is that the burden of proof is on you to prove that the statement is correct ; the other party does not have to prove you are wrong. In most cases, as long as you can prove that what is being stated is factually correct , then you have no issues. Where there is no proof ( or if the statement is just a fabrication ) then the problems can occur

Dave

 

[RB]

Same thing has happened previously with food critics writing restaurant reviews & reporters were taken to court. All seems back to the way it was again now.

 

[russianrob]

A factual, personal experience is not actionable. IMHO the article is another beatup.

 

[Mal]

The problem is, regardless of your account being factual (or not!), the time, money and energy you need to waste fighting the company is substantial. And depending on the organisation, it is possible that they could declare bankruptcy or something similar, so your chances of getting all your expenses back isn't guaranteed.

 

[Keith009]

I sure did and as I walked to desk I was greeted not by my real name but as drron,accompanied by a broad smile.I had let them know my ETA.

Was it a review on AFF then?

 

[dajop]

Having used trip advisor often, I imagine that whilst theoretically possible, it would be a brave hotel that started suing reviewers on that website (perhaps if they could identify a competitor making derogatory posts not based in fact, there would be a reason to justify this). The bad publicity alone from doing this would mean the decision to proceed with legal action would not be taken lightly.

Most hotels either have 1) a series of good reviews tarnished by the odd bad review, and I will often consider the balance of all reviews rather than an individual review, as I am sure most will or 2) a whole stack of bad reviews - in which case the hotel probably doesn't care what people think - either that or they're going to have to start suing many individual reviewers.

 

[drron]

Was it a review on AFF then?

No but I am so unimaginative I am drron everywhere I post.

 

[tuapekastar]

No but I am so unimaginative I am drron everywhere I post.

I thought it may have been like me, just getting too old to remember multiple user names! :shock:

 

[straitman]

I thought it may have been like me, just getting too old to remember multiple user names! :shock:

If you are too old then a few of us are really in trouble :!: Who ever you are

 

[tuapekastar]

If you are too old then a few of us are really in trouble :!: Who ever you are

If you recall who I am, please let me know!

 

[JohnK]

Here we go again! Let's encourage businesses to provide little or no service as we should be too scared to inform others just in case we are sued. I can only guess where this leading....

 

[penegal]

I think it's important to differentiate between a review and a rant.

If you have a bad experience and write a critical review, explaining why the service was below expectations then you should be fine. If you rant about a bad experience you have to be careful to construct your rant like a review, and explain why you feel so negatively about the experience. If you clearly explain what they did wrong, then you generally should be fine.

The basic rule is that when ranting, you have to tell it how it is. No matter how annoyed you are, you can't slag off a brand, or make it sound worse than it actually was, as that is deformation. Things such as personal attacks against staff, witty comments or asides, or defamatory phrases against the brand could potentially put you in the wrong.

I suspect this article is really targeting extreme cases, where a rant has gone out of control and someone has slagged off a business.

A good test is to ask yourself what a lay person reading the rant for the first time would think. Is it a well reasoned criticism, or is it deformation?

--

The article is correct to point out that you may be personally liable for what you write online. If you write a bad review for a newspaper, the editor of the newspaper will have to approve your article, and the newspaper will bat for you in any legal proceedings. Many websites make users agree to terms & conditions which limit or exclude the liability that the website takes for what you write. That is, you are the 'publisher' of what you write on the website, rather than the website.