Forum Moderators: not2easy
Has anybody got any experience in running a review website? What should we watch out for?
Is there a fine line between what we could say about our competitors and not?
prices: you'll be staffing someone to monitor your competitor's pricing 24/7/365 so your service of listing the prices is never stale, right?
reviews: these will be completely independent and totally objective reviews, with no slant toward pretending to be a review while actually being a promo on your own services, right?
Criticizing - that was a mere unfortunate choice of wording, right?
Competition - you're fully prepared for someone to come along and take screen shots of your work, display your pricing lists and to criticize, er, um, independently review your review site and your money site, right?
Just some food for thought before you go hiking a steep trail with loose gravel.
<added>cleaned up a passle of typos; made note to
self to clean keyboard and/or take typing
lessons.</added>
[edited by: kevinpate at 8:20 pm (utc) on Feb. 3, 2004]
And be sure not to infringe on any copyrights.
Several competitors of ours has review sites that are nothing but marketing strategies for their own site.
We are more interested in finding out the legal issues with this rather than ethical issues.
We are more interested in finding out the legal issues with this rather than ethical issues.
Talk to a lawyer.
Why not review sites that are synergistic with yours and will provide a relevant service to your visitors? You'll probably have sites lining up to be reviewed. For example, if you sell consumer items, maybe deep link to Epinions so people can do some quick-and-dirty research on the brands they are considering? If you're a sports book, maybe link to team home pages, stats sites, and sports new sites. And so on.
screenshots:I would be cautious here, and I am not sure it actually adds much value, but, as pointed out, Alexa and others do it without asking permission, so . . .
prices:You could periodically review and accurately portray this one. For instance, "On a recent day [or actual date], these were the prices for Widget X on our site and several of our competitors' sites." I would document and save the source of the data.
reviews:You probably have a good bit of leeway here, as long as it's properly represented as opinion.
CriticizingRather than assuming you're a liar and cheat, I assume by this you meant "critically analyzing"
CompetitionSounds like others already are, so . . .
All that said, I think, if you want to know if you're within legal bounds, the best advice has been given:
Talk to a lawyer.
Above are just my opinions. I am not a practicing lawyer and know just enough about the law in these areas to get you into trouble, not out of it.
MQ
I wouldn't classify what you propose as a "review" site, which is sort of a neutral ground for posting evaluations, but a "product comparison" or perhaps "competitor analysis" feature.
Some numbers can speak for themselves. Provided your measuring tape isn't fraudulent, you can't get in trouble for pointing out that your car has a three-inch longer wheelbase than your competitor's. But the less tangible the measure, the more room for error, and the more narrative you write, the more room for error. I consult for a financial services company, and when we print a chart or graph, it's usually accompanied with just a line or two for attribution and explanation. But when we try to interpret or explain the chart or graph, it is not unknown for us to need three paragraphs of discosures and disclaimers for one paragraph of narrative.
Another thing to consider is that libel and slander laws differ from country to country. In the US, libel (written or broadcast defamation) has a very high standard, and almost no libel or slander suits are ever successful. That is not the case in Britain or Australia, however, which are stricter; the likes of the Economist and Fox have recently been on the losing ends of such suits.
I'd compare the resolve and staying power of those you intend to target to your own. If they outweigh you by a large margin, proceed with caution.
latest prices- well if you are posting the prices of a web sites services/products and they update their pricing on the original site- they will have grounds for you making fraudelent claims about their site and business
reviews of our competitors- be careful what you say
If your competitor can prove that any of it is false or inaccurate and you competitor has federally trademarked their company name they will slap you with a trademark libel lawsuit.
If the wording of your review even remotely suggests your competitor is incompetent at what they do you can expect to be sued as well.
Suggestion: instead of pointing out the flaws in your competition and tearing them down
(that kind of negativity usually alienates customers)
hire a professional copy writer (not copyright a copy writer is an expert at writing advertisment text (copy) and use your web site to tell what makes you so damn good at what you do
If your goal is to attract new business you are shooting yourself in the foot by taking the negative ad campaign approach. Plus people will visit those sites to see if you are telling the truth (customers are better informed). So you may be only sending traffic to your competitors.
