Buzz
After being ranked as the dirtiest hotel in the US by the travel website TripAdvisor, Grand Resort Hotel filed for bankruptcy. The owners decided to sue TripAdvisor but ended up losing an additional $10 million.
The owner of the hotel, Mr. Kenneth Seaton, decided to take TripAdvisor to court, alleging that it damaged the hotel's reputation and severely affected its business. However, the federal court dismissed this complaint.
Previously, Mr. Kenneth Seaton demanded $10 million in compensation from the website TripAdvisor. According to Mr. Seaton, his hotel's ranking on TripAdvisor's list was due to the website's inaccurate and flawed rating system.
Accordingly, completely anonymous accounts could easily log in to write malicious and baseless comments, entirely speculative and highly prejudiced. It is because of this rating system that the image of Mr. Seaton's hotel has been severely damaged to the point of irreparability.
Conversely, TripAdvisor argues that this ranking is entirely based on reviews from travelers who are also readers of the website. With a commitment to providing information based on reader interaction with comments, TripAdvisor asserts that there is absolutely no influence lacking fairness.
Prior to this lawsuit, the court in Cincinnati, where the case was heard, declared last Wednesday that travelers, who are also TripAdvisor readers, are not obligated to disclose their personal information to prove the transparency of the voting list.
Additionally, the court affirmed that Grand Resort Hotel is indeed a poorly sanitized hotel and that a useful information website like TripAdvisor needs to be protected from lawsuits like this one.
On TripAdvisor's website, as evidence for their comments, some readers have posted photos of torn bed sheets or long-unwashed tubs, grimy, heavily dusted, with plenty of stray hairs inside.
Judge Karen Nelson Moore also asserted that for community opinion polling websites like these, no reader completely trusts the results presented; all are merely for reference.
Furthermore, the expression in the article is exaggerated, humorous, emphasizing entertainment value. Besides Grand Resort Hotel, other hotels on this list also face equally negative responses from readers, such as 'sleeping in the bathroom might be cleaner' or 'might as well sleep on the beach'
The media has shown great enthusiasm for this court decision. Jeffrey Hermes, Director of the Media Law Program at Harvard University, stated: “This is a collective victory for online websites that use interaction-based evaluation methods with online communities. Thus, community comments are not only publicly published but also help the website draw conclusions based on various sources, ensuring the diversity of media.”
A spokesperson for TripAdvisor expressed their delight at the court's decision, affirming the site's mission to 'protect the opinions of its readers.'
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Source: Mytour Travel Guide – By: Dân trí
MytourSeptember 3, 2013
