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A Whole Lotta Dissing Going Down on Web: Blog Sites Provide Anonymous Posters the Opportunity to Cybersmear Their Targets, and There's Little You Can Do About It

Posted on: Sunday, 12 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Mike Hughlett and Eric Benderoff, Chicago Tribune

Mar. 12--Terence Banich had been outed as a bad tipper, and he didn't even know it.

He popped up on the cheapskate list at BitterWaitress.com, berated by a server at a Chicago restaurant for leaving a $3 tip on a $200 bill.

Informed of his tipping infamy, Banich said if he had left such a measly gratuity, it was a mistake, a misplaced decimal point, and he's sorry for it.

But Banich, a Chicago lawyer, also said he was none too pleased that a waitress had lifted information from his credit card--his name--and posted it on the Internet.

Banich had effectively been cybersmeared, and he's far from alone.

As the Internet has grown, so have Web sites that allow ordinary people to post all sorts of reviews and opinions about customers, bosses, businesses and so on.

You can gripe about your boss at JobSchmob.com, complain about Wal-Mart at the Consumerist.com or rail against a contractor's shoddy work on Angie's List.

For the most part, these sites are a good thing--more information leads to better choices--whether picking a place to work, to shop or to eat.

But a byproduct of this sort of democracy is the cybersmear, a critique run amok. It's a nasty opinion posted on the Internet that can sully the reputation of a business or individual, sometimes through outright fibs.

And those who feel they've been defamed usually have little recourse. By law, Web sites like BitterWaitress are not treated as publishers. Instead, they are pipelines for the opinions of their readers and contributors.

Sites like BitterWaitress have been on the Internet since the beginning, but now they reach more people than ever. That's partly because the Web is becoming such a staple in people's lives: 72 percent of all U.S. adults use it, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

It's also because blogs and message boards have become so easy to create in the past few years.

"It's kind of a no-brainer to get these things set up," said Laura Gurak, director of the University of Minnesota's Internet Studies Center.

Derek Gordon, marketing director at blog-tracking site Technorati, said it follows about 30 million blogs worldwide. The number of blogs tracked by Technorati has doubled in size every 5 1/2 months, Gordon said.

"Before blogs, very few people had means to express their ideas," he said. "Now, people have a distribution method."

Waiter serves up site

Chris Fehlinger began distributing restaurant servers' opinions in 1999 when he started BitterWaitress. Now, type the word "waitress" into Google's search engine, and Fehlinger's site is the first you'll see.

Fehlinger, a veteran New York City waiter, started the site as a newsletter. He added celebrity gossip, tidbits from servers about stars' tipping habits, and a section where waiters and waitresses could post their own "war stories" about managers and customers.

Those war stories, which are anonymous, range from reasoned complaints to wild rants. Individual restaurants aren't frequently named, though some could be identified by details given.

Then there's BitterWaitress' bad tipper database, which frequently drops names of the famous and the not-at-all famous.

"It started out as a sort of joke," Fehlinger said of the list, which sports a formal title that can't be printed in this newspaper.

But it has proved quite popular. There are 2,500 postings on it from across the country, and Fehlinger said he has 2,000 more bad-tip posts that he hasn't had time to put up.

Banich's name surfaced on the bad tipper list after he and a companion dined last fall at a Chicago steakhouse, Ruth's Chris.

The poster was anonymous but said the server called Banich "cheap" and groused that the woman with him complained about the menu's lack of vegetarian options.

In an interview, Banich recalled the meal, though he couldn't recall the amount of the tip.

But he said he's generally a good tipper, and that if he wanted to make a point about bad service, he still wouldn't have left so little.

"Do you think if I had a bill of $200 that I'd [purposely] leave $3? Definitely not," Banich said.

Even his server acknowledged in the post that Banich might have just goofed.

Information from credit card

The server might have gotten Banich's name from his credit card. The server also apparently threw Banich's name into an Internet search engine: The posting noted that he was a lawyer, information Banich said he didn't give out.

Banich was troubled that his credit card was used for more than just paying his bill.

"The expectation is that [payment] is the only reason they'll use that information, and that they are not going to expropriate it to air a grievance in public," he said. "It's a breach of trust."

Chris Bachman, general manager of the Ruth's Chris, said he'd never heard of BitterWaitress and that the restaurant "obviously" doesn't allow such postings like the one about Banich.

Fehlinger said he accepts postings only from servers who get names from credit cards. A credit card transaction is ultimately verifiable, unlike a cash transaction. He doesn't require a copy of a card slip but takes on faith that a name comes from a credit card.

Servers have sent him more than just names from cards. "People have sent in numbers and I say, 'no way,'" Fehlinger said.

By posting names provided by anonymous sources, Internet sites can take what is mostly a positive thing--venting and even ranting--and turn it into something malicious, say some Internet observers.

"I think the blogosphere was born on ranting," said Technorati's Gordon. Still, he said, "the vast majority of the time, people will not name names. The vast majority of people are civil."

John Grohol, a psychologist who studies online behavior, agreed. Venting is "therapeutic," and the Internet provides a great outlet for it, said Grohol, who also runs a Web site called Psych Central.

"But if people are being called out [by name], that can cross the line into slander or libel, and that's a bad thing."

Fehlinger said that if people named on BitterWaitress complain--courteously--that they've been wronged, he will remove the offending post.

Pulling posts

Some Web sites have procedures in place to stop potentially abusive or defamatory posts.

For instance, Craigslist, one of the Web's most visited sites, has a system in which its own users can flag what they believe are inappropriate or illegal posts. Such ads are then removed.

At Angie's List, users reveal their names to the Web site's operators, though their online reviews remain anonymous.

The site grades contractors, from plumbers to roofers to electricians, on an "A" to "F" scale. Users must pay a fee and can write a review of an individual contractor only every six months.

Plus, "We have a team of people here who review the comments to make sure there's nothing there out of the ordinary," said Angie Hicks, who started the list from Columbus, Ohio, 11 years ago.

Even if lies slip through the cracks of a review or rant site, the site's operator has a strong legal shield: the Communications Decency Act. It says that providers of an "interactive computer service" shall not be treated as publishers of information; therefore, they aren't held liable for objectionable material posted by their users.

Thus, if a blogger personally publishes something defamatory on their Web site, they can be held liable. But if that information is posted on a message board or online forum, they can't.

Fehlinger said he often gets legal threats from people or businesses named on BitterWaitress.

"They say, 'I'll sue you for defamation of character.' I say, 'Try a different medium, sorry.'"

The Decency Act is a defense being used by Rip-off Report, a consumer advocacy site sued for libel by Park Ridge management consulting firm George S. May International.

Rip-off Report allows consumers to post reports about shoddy products or services and the companies that produce them.

It's a well-traveled site, attracting 550,000 unique visitors in February, according to ComScore Networks, which tracks Web sites. The mere fact it surfaces in ComScore's database is testimony to the size of its audience.

The Rip-off Report doesn't write the complaints it posts, said Ed Magedson, the site's Phoenix-based manager and owner. "The only thing we do is remove. We do not add. We remove foul language."

In September 2004, May International sued Rip-off Report and Magedson in U.S. District Court in Chicago claiming the site posted several false accusations, including that the company and its executives engaged in fraud, larceny and possession of controlled substances and child pornography.

Bart Lazar, an attorney representing May, said the company believes the postings originated from a competing consulting firm.

Contempt finding

U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle issued a temporary restraining order forcing Rip-off Report to take down some of the May posts, saying they included "false or deceptively misleading" statements.

Not satisfied with Rip-off Report's response, May asked Norgle to find the site in contempt of court for violating the restraining order. Norgle agreed.

May International also is asking for monetary damages, claiming that it lost business due to the postings.

Rip-off Report has several defenses to May's claims, but chief among is the Decency Act.

"Of course it is," said Magedson, whose Web operation is no stranger to litigation.

"Legal threats, we get them every day, often twice a day," he said.

Magedson said anyone doing business or, for that matter, anyone living in the Internet era, better get used to the notion that they may end up on the Web, whether they like it or not.

"If you do business, someone will eventually blog you," he said. "Your neighbor down the street may blog you. Good or bad, right or wrong, we're all going to be blogged."

He ought to know. There's a Web site called Bad-business-rip-off.net dedicated to discrediting Magedson and Rip-off Report.

- - -

You've got a gripe? Then post it here

BitterWaitress.com

JobSchmob.com

Consumerist.com

Rip-offReport.com

ShamelessRestaurants.com

mhughlett@tribune.com

ebenderoff@tribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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