Adsense HTML

Showing posts with label trip advisor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trip advisor. Show all posts

Arrested for giving a bad review

An American who complained on TripAdvisor that a resort hotel in Thailand wanted to charge him a $15 corkage fee for bringing his own bottle of gin to the restaurant was arrested this month and spent a weekend in jail. If convicted of criminal defamation, he faces up to two years in prison. So don't write anything bad about the Sea View Koh Chang resort, which had the charges brought.

After a backlash, the resort had some regrets. “We agree that using a defamation law may be viewed as excessive for this situation,” the hotel acknowledged.

Meriton found guilty of manipulating TripAdvisor Reviews

Serviced apartment and hotel operator Meriton was found to have engaged in illegal conduct by manipulating TripAdvisor reviews.  The ACCC sued Meriton and won.  The ACCC brought actions under s18 and the little used s34 of the Australian Consumer Law.

See judgment at:  http://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2017/2017fca1305

According to the judgment, Meriton manipulated TripAdvisor in two ways:

"The respondent (Meriton) conducts a business of offering serviced apartment accommodation at (at least) 13 properties in Queensland and New South Wales. These properties appear on the TripAdvisor website. During the period November 2014 to October 2015 (the relevant period), Meriton participated in the Review Express service offered by TripAdvisor.  On a weekly basis, Meriton provided TripAdvisor with the email addresses of guests who had stayed at its properties and TripAdvisor sent email invitations to these guests to post a review. However, rather than sending TripAdvisor the email addresses of all guests who had stayed at its properties (other than those who had requested that their details not be provided), Meriton adopted the following two practices:
(a)    The first practice was to add the letters MSA” (which stand for Meriton Serviced Apartments) to the front of the email addresses of certain guests. This rendered the email address invalid. This practice was applied to guests who had made a complaint or were otherwise considered likely to have had a negative experience at a Meriton property.  I will refer to this practice as the MSA-masking practice.
(b)    The second practice was to withhold from TripAdvisor the email addresses of all the guests who had stayed at a property during a period of time when there had been major service disruption (such as the lifts not working, no hot water, etc). I will refer to this practice as the bulk withholding practice."

User Generated Content

An interesting story from England.  A hotel fined a guest for a bad review on TripAdvisor.

See Couple Fined by Hotel for Bad Review

See also this article, that mentions some lawsuits regarding user generated content

Hotel Executive In Trouble over TripAdvisor reviews

A hotel PR person posted TripAdvisor reviews (mostly about restaurants) and got it serious trouble for it.  See stories here and here.

Are Online Reviews Reliable?

A recent newspaper article discusses whether online review websites, such as TripAdvisor, are reliable.

See Bad Reputation.

How should damages be assessed for privacy and cybersecurity breaches

Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...