Trustpilot-like listings on my new website

[StitchInLime]

I run a popular community for people within a specific profession and am redesigning my website to include a Trustpilot like directory where people can share their experiences of the companies and people who service this profession. I'm aware of media law, defamation, privacy laws etc, and have written guidelines around the obvious stuff. All experiences will be pre-moderated too and only registered users can submit. But I was wondering whether I need to get more legal advice or something drawn up. I've looked at TripAdvisor and Trustpilot's guidelines etc to get a sense of what to include in the guidelines, but I was wondering whether I need to go a step further and get professional advice to avoid my arse being sued. I will be super careful when publishing experiences, but it's inevitable negative experiences will be shared.

If you would recommend I get advice, any recommendations and sense of costs?

Definitely get professional advice.

Agree - get legal advice. Trust pilot are in court proceedings at the moment I believe being sued about a review

Talk to Feefo. You can only review using that review medium if you have been invited to do so by the company / can prove your purchase. I would imagine that pushes the legalities onto them to police the source of the review.

Why do you want to do this? Personally I wouldn't bother. It's more hassle than its worth if you are a small business.

People basically only want to write reviews that are ultra positive or ultra negative. The negative ones are where you have a problem.

What are you going to do when there's a negative reviewingn by AB saying X are rubbish, ripped me off, negligent and so on and X complains to you. AB will say this is totally justified don't take it down you are interferring with my right to freedom of expression and it will give a false impression of X. You decide to take it down for safety. X instructs solicitors to sue you for defamation for the period it was live. AB refuses to give evidence to support you. You are stuffed basically and will almost certainly end up paying out £££ whether in libel damages or lawyers fees.

OP is protected against a claim of libel in the situation you describe. Regulations set out a process she must follow on receiving a claim that a post is libellous. Provided she follows that process, any claim against her would fail and X would have to pay her legal costs.

OP is protected against a claim of libel in the situation you describe. Regulations set out a process she must follow on receiving a claim that a post is libellous. Provided she follows that process, any claim against her would fail and X would have to pay her legal costs.

@prh47bridge This is a bit naive I am afraid if you are talking about the Regulations and Defence under s.5 of the Defamation Act, it's not that simple because there are lots of circumstances in which that defence will fail. The obligations imposed by the regulations involve various steps which include engaging with the poster. There are also time limits which can be easy to miss. Difficulties (and costs of your own legal advice) can arises if the poster can't be identified or refuses to consent to identification without a court order.

It's not really something that is worthwhile messing about with as a small business I think because like I said personal reviews of people and businesses are prone to ultra negative postings.

Not naive at all. Provided the steps in the regulations are followed, the defence will not fail. Yes, there are time limits you have to observe. Yes, you have to engage with the poster if you have their contact details. The regulations are clear as to what you must do if you do not have the poster's contact details. The regulations are clear as to what you must do if the poster fails to respond, or if they refuse to give contact details, or if they refuse to allow their contact details to be passed on. No legal advice is needed at any point. The Ministry of Justice publishes a nice clear guide on all this. Unless OP is overwhelmed with people claiming they have been libelled, they should have no trouble ensuring that the Section 5 defence is available to them.