Fairness When It Comes To Consumer Reviews

As you enter the new year of 2018, you probably are planning to eat at restaurants, stay in hotels, visit doctors and other professionals, and shop online and in stores. Before spending your hard-earned dollars, you may be one of millions of people who go to review sites, like Yelp, to make sure that you will be spending your money at establishments that have earned favorable reviews. But what happens when vendors and providers require contractual clauses that ban consumer reviews? Enter the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016.

In his paper titled Understanding the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016, Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman explains that "[c]onsumer reviews are vitally important to our modern economy" and that "[m]arkets become stronger and more efficient when consumers share their marketplace experience and guide other consumers toward the best vendors and away from poor ones."