온라인 플랫폼의 이용후기 - 허위의 온라인 이용후기를 둘러싼 법적 쟁점 -

The proliferation of consumer review sites unquestionably provide easily searchable information on products and services. The explosion of consumer review can be very beneficial for consumers and businesses alike. Consumers can find out what they need to know before the decide to procure the products or services, while businesses get publicity that consumers can easily find. For the success of consumer review sites the reliability of consumer reviews is decisive. Of course fake consumer reviews harm to the reliability of consumer reviews and should be prohibited. The practice of posting fake reviews appears in two ways: fake positive reviews and fake negative reviews. The former is regarded as a form of covert advertising. It tends to be regulated within the scope of competitive law. On the other hand significant litigation has arisen over false or misleading negative reviews that business owners claim to be defamatory. The business owners want legal recourse against an individual reviewer or the consumer review sites. Legal recourse for claims of defamation against an online reviewer is generally futile because reviewers post comments anonymously. Therefore plaintiffs want unmasking the identify of an anonymous reviewer which is a circular battle with state procedures that require a business to prove the statement is false. Comparative law studies show that the problem of negative reviews is focused primarily on proving the reviewer as a real consumer. In any case the importance of freedom of free speech and protection of business reputation should be balanced.