The fairness of Trip Advisor reviews and how they should be judged

TripAdvisor gets Italian fine overturned - PC World Australia:

"An Italian court has overturned a €500,000 (US$550,000) fine imposed last December on the online travel company TripAdvisor for allegedly publishing misleading information in its reviews.

The fine was imposed by Italy's Competition Authority (AGCM) at the request of a consumer organization and a national hotelier association, who argued that TripAdvisor did not do enough to ensure that the hotel and restaurant reviews posted by users on its website were reliable.

In a ruling made available to the parties on Monday, the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio said TripAdvisor explicitly acknowledged that it was not able to check the truthfulness of its reviews and advised users to consider broader trends in user-generated recommendations.

"TripAdvisor never asserted that all its reviews were true, pointing out instead that it is impossible to exercise a blanket control and inviting users to consider 'trends' in the reviews rather than single contributions," the court said. "We do not understand the harm to the consumer identified by the Authority in its concluding arguments.""



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