“Since Yelp was founded in 2004, we’ve made it our business to help protect consumer free speech. Consumers have the right to share their opinions about their experiences with businesses, but there will always be a small handful of businesses who mistakenly think it’s a good idea to threaten consumers who exercise their free speech rights. As a result, we started a new type of Consumer Alert to warn people about businesses that issue questionable legal threats.”
While businesses have legal protection against both libel and slander, or oral defamatory statements, it’s been the job of the courts and of Congress to adapt our law to changing times and technologies.
Thanks to legal concerns raised by these lawsuits, consumers are now guaranteed the right to leave a bad review.
In 1996 the Communications Decency Act was passed, which let websites provide “neutral tools” for users to post online, and as such, would keep the websites from being held liable for potentially libelous content posted by individuals. The 1996 law has been used to protect sites like Yelp from legal action for two decades, but after numerous challenges over the years, Congress has gone a one step further to protect consumer’s rights.
