I worked for a long time at the Utah Attorney General’s Office. For over 10 years our office has recommended to Utah consumers that they use Ripoff Report as a good source of information. We’ve even recommended businesses to use their programs to help with customer service. I know for a fact that the website would never take money to remove any report. Ripoff Report will not remove reports, period. I didn’t see any quote from ripoffreport.com Here is what they state on their home page:
Ripoff Report® is a worldwide consumer reporting Web site and publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file and document complaints about companies or individuals…Unlike the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report does not hide reports of “satisfied” complaints. ALL complaints remain public and unedited in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question.
strong textMedia attention
Quite often the media is interested in the reports you filed and ask us to assist in their investigations giving you the publicity needed to help your cause. In the event your Ripoff Report is of interest to the media, we will put you in contact with them.
It seems Jen is the beneficiary of everything Ripoff Report promises all consumers.
So, in effect, we are saying that it’s ok for a website to publish unproved allegations about a business from a third party and there be no recourse or way to have these allegations removed, even where those allegations are later proved to be false. Given that nothing, some or all of what is written on the website is true why would anybody in an official capacity advise people to use the site as a source of information? Perhaps if you were trying to deliberately confuse those people. Sadly it’s people who do recommend the site as a credible source of info that help give it credibility and add legitimacy to the allegations, where, in fact it has no credibility and no accountability.
I’m not saying that Kleargear hasn’t acted badly, although I obviously don’t know, and, frankly I think Jen is being absolutely honest in how things panned out for her. But I don’t think Ripoff Report is innocent in all of this and it seems amazing to me that they simply refuse to remove content provided by the person requesting it be removed while also saying that, since it isn’t their content they can’t be legally forced to remove it. Had she written on Facebook or Twitter a court could demand she pull the post, if it was found to be false, in this case she has lost control of her own content and that, I think, is the worse part of this story.
I’m saying that if that’s what’s happened, there’s an existing mechanism for dealing with it: Libel law. Gag terms in licenses or contracts are not the right answer. Frankly, any company which feels it needs such terms is announcing that they expect to have a lot of loudly unhappy customers, and should probably be avoided.
If it ISN’T actionable libel, it is free speech. The test of whether we believe in that ideal comes when we ask whether we’re willing to defend speech that is stupid or wrong. Realistically, this is going to happen anyway, whether on a site dedicated to it or in peoples’ individual blogs and so on. I suspect it’s actually less damaging on a site dedicated to the purpose than it would be if circulated informally/virally. (How many people actually read Ripoff Report? I’d bet the number is vanishingly small compared to the possible audience without that lightning rod.)
It’s the flipside of the privacy question.The Internet has made the global village a much more real thing, and with a village comes village gossip – which will include some that is wrong, and some that is maliciously wrong. Nature of the animal. Folks who have a vague clue will figure out that single points of data may represent one overreacting individual and should be taken with a five-pound salt lick. Vendors who have a vague clue will figure out that overreacting to that overreaction is counterproductive and just calls more attention to it. And the universe will settle back into its accustomed rounds with very little real change… except that systematic abusers, either as vendors or as customers, will be exposed.
something tells me they are presently dealing with a lot of fake orders. Not the best way to express your opinion (as it might be a federal crime in itself) but whatever…
