What Are The Liabilities Online?

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 24th, 2009

I am often asked in workshops and when meeting with clients what the liability is online. There are challenges that accompany the opportunity to freely speak your mind to a potentially global audience. I read this article with interest. A California court has ruled that a dentist can pursue a lawsuit against the writer of a bad review on Yelp. Yelp is an online Web 2.0 company that operates a social network, user review and local search. According to stats, over 10.6 million people access this site each month putting it in the top 100 U.S. websites. A good review on Yelp brings people business, a bad review can hurt.

Apparently the dentist originally tried to sue Yelp, but the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes the site from libel lawsuits stemming from user comments.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of this case.