Many craft brewers rely on word of mouth and good, honest reviews to reach new customers, but some beer makers are questioning whether an independent beer review website can remain untainted even after the world’s largest beer company buys an ownership stake. [More]
reviews
Feds Say Trampoline Company Used Phony Reviews From Bogus Trampoline Experts
By 5.31.17
If you sell a product that has glowing reviews from dependable expert critics, you’d probably want to point that out to customers. Or… you could just go ahead and make up a bunch of fake “expert” sites filled with fictional reviews. [More]
Study Finds Paying For Online Reviews Leads To Fewer Reviews
By 5.2.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Rewarding people with cash has generally been a good way to motivate them to do things they are otherwise not obligated to do, but a new study claims that when you offer folks money for writing online reviews, it can backfire and result in fewer overall reviews. [More]
America Takes Out Its Frustrations On Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino
By 4.20.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When times are tough, it helps to have a punching bag on which you can safely take out your frustration. Whether it intended to or not, Starbucks has provided the world with a multicolored anger sponge: the Unicorn Frappuccino. [More]
Ad Watchdog Warns Comcast & Dish To Use Caution When Dissing DirecTV
By 9.22.16
Pay-TV services might need to be a bit more careful when it comes to the messages they put out into the universe following an ad watchdog’s suggestion that Comcast and Dish revise some of the claims made against competitors in national ads.
California Supreme Court To Review Yelp’s Case For Not Removing Allegedly Defamatory Reviews
By 9.22.16
Two months after a California appeals court attempted to put an end to a years-long dispute between a lawyer and a former client she accused of posting defamatory reviews by ordering Yelp to take down the comments, the Supreme Court of California unanimously agreed to hear an appeal of the case. [More]
Yelp, TripAdvisor Not Happy With Google’s New Critics’ Review Search Results
By 8.8.16
TripAdvisor and Yelp, two of the biggest names in crowdsourced reviews, say that Google is using its position as the dominant online search engine to push Google-backed reviews ahead of links to review sites. [More]
TripAdvisor Now Lets Travelers Bemoan, Praise Airlines Through Ratings & Reviews
By 7.18.16
For years, travelers have been able to review, book, and rate most aspects of their trips on TripAdvisor – everything but their flight. That’s about to change, now that the company has opened the floodgates of praise and ridicule by allowing passengers to rate their carrier of choice. [More]
Some Health Providers Are Sharing Patients’ Info Online In Reaction To Bad Yelp Reviews
By 5.27.16
Now that we live in a world where it seems everything can be rated — from your restaurant experience to your root canal — privacy issues are popping up in unexpected places. Like in health care providers’ responses to negative reviews from patients on Yelp, for example. [More]
FDA Bans Sale Of E-Cigarettes To Minors; Requires Health Warnings
By 5.5.16
After a prolonged, seven-year process of drafting regulations for e-cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration has finalized rules that treat e-cigs, hookah tobacco, pipe tobacco, and premium cigars the same as traditional cigarettes and cigars. [More]
Amazon Sues Five Sites Promising Reviews For Cash
By 4.26.16
Since filing its first lawsuit to block companies from selling fraudulent positive reviews last April, Amazon has taken a number of steps to cutback on the number of fake review peppering its site: data mining reviewers’ personal relationships, tweaking how reviews appear on product pages, and suing more than 1,100 individual reviewers who sell their kind words. Now the e-commerce giant has sued five additional sites, accusing them of selling sham reviews. [More]
Bar Replies To Customer’s New Year’s Eve Complaint Of Being Ignored While Fellow Patron Has Heart Attack
By 1.4.16
Often when we hear about a business’ response to a customer complaint spreading furiously on social media, it’s because people are shocked by the company’s response or because someone who works there was perhaps inappropriate in their reply. But when the manager of an Indianapolis bar replied on Facebook to a patron who slammed the establishment for ignoring her party’s questions about the bill to deal with an “overdosed junkie” — in reality, an elderly woman who had a heart attack — the Internet seemed quite pleased. [More]
Facebook Taking On Yelp, Angie’s List To Provide Users With Highly-Rated Professional Services
By 12.15.15
Finding a reliable service provider can be a test of patience for some consumers, despite sites like Angie’s List and Yelp that aim to connect customers with local professionals focused on repairs, installations, or other jobs around the house. Facebook thinks it has what it takes to make the quest for a dependable handyman, lawn care service, plumber, and other local businesses with its new “Professional Services” feature. [More]
Angie Of Angie’s List Defends Policy Of Removing Negative Reviews If Customers Get Refunds
By 12.14.15
If a company offers you a refund after you post a negative online review of your transaction, does that make your original comment any less valid? According to Angie Hicks of crowdsourced review site Angie’s List, once your dispute with a company is resolved, you should only be allowed to say nice things about the company. [More]
Restaurant Critic Rails Against “Stupid And Broken” Star-Rating System
By 10.27.15
We’ve said before that star ratings for restaurants are often arbitrary and may not be an accurate representation of the review’s content or of other diners’ standards. You might think that critics who get paid to give such ratings would defend the practice, but at least one of them has come out swinging against the stars, bells, and other dingbats he and his fellow reviewers are often compelled to use. [More]
Amazon Sues 1,114 Individual Reviewers For Hire
By 10.16.15
Earlier this year, Amazon did something that it had never tried before: it sued four websites peddling reviews to sellers on their site. Today, they’ve filed a new lawsuit [PDF] against people selling their services as reviewers through the site Fiverr. That means that the suit has 1,114 unnamed defendants. [More]
Home Depot Website Glitch Provides Two Ratings For Some Products
By 9.2.15
While researching products on a retailer’s website, other customers’ reviews and ratings of those items can be helpful. But a glitch in Home Depot’s rating presentation system has caused a bit of confusion: the product page shows two different ratings for some products. [More]
Google Adds Paid Home Service Provider Suggestions To Search Results For “Clogged Toilet,” “Plumber”
By 8.31.15
Less than a year after Amazon took on the likes of Angie’s List, Yelp and other companies that can connect consumers to professional service providers like plumbers, locksmiths, electricians and others, Google announced it would join the fray by adding prescreened service providers to its sponsored search results. [More]
