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Anonymous Reputation Ruiners

Dr. Defamation
I am a plastic surgeon who recently had an anonymous user post very negative reviews of my business. They are including pictures and stories that don’t match up with any customers I recall having recently. I think it may be a competitor located very close to us. What kind of recourse do I have?

Nowland Law:
The rising trend of internet reviews is yesterday’s news. Every business owner in the country needs to have best practices in place, written policies, and they need to understand the law. The best cure for this is having excellent customer service and the right attitude towards your customers from the top of the organization down to front line employees. However, in some cases there could be anonymous attackers who defame or slander your business in a very public way, that you feel are unfair. Whether you should pursue them or not depends on a multitude of factors that should be discussed with your partners or other stakeholders, and legal counsel.

In this case, you are suspecting it is a competitor because none of the details or their story ring any bells. The first consideration is the pictures or videos. If someone is using pictures or videos in a negative review that you own the copyright to, you can legally have those elements taken down for copyright infringement. If the picture or other media that was posted does not belong to you, you will have no recourse in having that removed.

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To identify or potentially bring a case against an anonymous internet user who has slandered your business, you would have to file a ‘John Doe’ case. This is a lawsuit where you file suit against an unknown party. Let’s say that your bad reviews were on yelp. The John Doe case could allow cause for a subpoena that can require Yelp to deliver all of the information they have on that anonymous user.

From there, you can learn emails, names (if they were accurately provided by the user) or IP Addresses. That may require another subpoena with the Internet Service Provider of whomever’s IP address that was. Eventually, you may be able to find your “John Doe”. Again, whether it is worth it or not to pursue them is a very personal decision that requires objective thinking. You should consult with a lawyer who is aware of defamation law and John Doe cases.

As always, remember to consult with an experienced business litigation attorney before taking action.

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