Judge Orders Yelp To Identify Anonymous Negative Commenter

This post was written by Kimberly R. Chow and John P. Feldman.

On September 15, a judge in Boston ruled that Yelp must reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter who wrote a negative review of a jeweler on the online review site.

The order to non-party Yelp in the attempted defamation suit of the jeweler against the commenter is the latest in a series of attempts by libel plaintiffs and the government to force content hosts to unmask anonymous commenters.  Content hosts have argued that the First Amendment protects the right to speak anonymously, and that identifying online commenters threatens to chill freedom of expression on the Internet.  Boston Municipal Judge Robert J. McKenna Jr.'s ruling that Yelp must reveal a commenter's identity stands in contrast to a recent Virginia Supreme Court case holding that a subpoena to Yelp for reviewers' identities could not be enforced.