Readers Comments Section on my Site.

Anyone know any UK stuff about this

[bateman_ap]

On my website I have a section where users can comment on a experience at a restaurant, if they claim they received food poisoning after a visit, and we published this, could we be taken to court for anything?

Also how about if it was a bit tamer, such as they had a waiter shout at them for example?

[shelleycat]

There's a news story going on here where a few people have got into trouble for passing on by email an unproven story about someone getting food poisoning from a local restaraunt. The people involved used a work email address and ended up losing their jobs over it.

Because it's both difficulat to prove that the illness came from that restaraunt and because it has legal implications for the restaruant (particularly their food safety certification) I'd advise you steer clear of publishing anything like that on your site. If the person making the claim has a medical report of their illness and samples of the food showing specific contamination which can be tied to that illness then you'd probably be OK, otherwise you're leaving yourself wide open.

As for poor service, I'm not sure. I know more about bacteria than waiters :D

Shelley

[mack]

I think the only safe ruite you can go down is allowing your users to rate the restaurant using a poll, but stress that any imformation gathered in the poll is compiled from users opinions.