Website under Siege to Remove Unsubstantiated Viscious Reviews

(Dive Travel Business News - November 7, 2010) -- A British reputation management company, KwikChex, is gathering unhappy hotel owners and travel providers in a group to fight TripAdvisor: It's threatening to file class action suits in Britain and the United States for defamation and libel unless TripAdvisor changes its policies about posting user-generated hotel reviews.

The KwikChex group wants TripAdvisor to remove reviews that aren't verified but make serious charges such as crime, injury or illness. It wants other unverified insulting reviews taken down.  As part of its anti TripAdvisor strategy, KwikChex might also attempt to identify individual negative posters and go after them legally.

The advent of online reader review databases has been a positive development: Most anonymous reviews like those found on TripAdvisor can be honest, accurate and insightful. These reviews can help travelers and reward the best travel providers. Reviews can also pressure hotels to improve their service quality and property offerings so everyone wins. 

However not all reviews being posted are honest or accurate.  Disgruntled travelers and fired employees with a hate-on can post hyper-critical and sometimes fraudulent claims that could jeopardize an otherwise well-run hotel business. Online review sites must adequately monitor posted reviews or they create unnecessary trouble for themselves.  TripAdvisor may have gone a step further, getting itself deeper into hot water by its repeated use of edited reviews to generate "Worst" lists:  This practice may put TripAdvisor legally at risk because they are creating these lists based simply on individual unsubstantiated and viscious reviews - and left unchecked such free-wheeling hostility can destroy of an otherwise stable business.

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