If this Bill Passes, It Will Protect Your Right to Leave Bad Yelp Reviews

Consumers may soon be legally protected from lawsuits over negative online reviews, so long as the reviews are not defamatory.

It seems unbelievable, but as it stands, you can be sued simply for leaving a bad online review. Such lawsuits rarely go to court, but they're threatened all the time by contractors and small businesses who are concerned their profits could suffer because of an online comment on a site like Yelp or Angie's List.

But Senator John Thune of South Dakota is sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would void any clause in a contract that prohibits customers from posting negative comments online—the "gag clause"—and the bill is likely to get approval by its Senate committee. Thune thinks it could even hit the Senate floor before the end of the year.

News items about these kinds of lawsuits abound. One woman was sued in 2013 for posting about a bad experience with an auto body shop, and in 2010 the New York Times profiled a young man being sued over his flap with a towing service, who towed his car from a spot he had a permit to park in. (The Times quotes the defendant: "There's no reason I should have to shut up because some guy doesn't want his dirty laundry out. It's the power of the Internet, man.")

Defamatory cases would still be protected, so consumers should be prepared to provide proof of their bad experiences. But no longer would businesses be able to threaten legal action because a review had simply hurt their business, nor could they use the mere threat of legal action to cow people into taking down their reviews.

One case, filed in 2013 in my home county, went all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the initial decisions and ruled in favor of the defendant, saying reviews should not be censored. In the event of defamation, plaintiffs should seek "money damages."