Mark Britton told OUT-LAW that an Avvo defeat could have
repercussions for ratings systems on major sites.
"I think there's a big concern here; I mean it when I say that
this is an attempt to bomb us back to the stone age," he said,
speaking to weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio. "[Making]
information flow more fluidly should be everyone's goal. To somehow
strike against that hurts every site whether it's a site like Avvo
or a site like Amazon or Buy.com."
Avvo is the subject of a class action lawsuit in Seattle,
Washington. Steven Berman of Berman Seattle law firm Hagens Berman
Sobol Shapiro has filed a class action suit on behalf of two
lawyers who have objected to the system.
Berman said that his suit is based on state consumer protection
laws. "The basis of the suit is that Avvo represents that it has an
objective, scientific, mathematically-based rating system for
lawyers so that consumers can make an informed decision," he said.
"In fact there is no mathematical objective basis for rating these
lawyers, it's a hodge podge of inaccurate and unscientific
information."
Should Berman win his case and show that a system such as Avvo's
is not transparent enough to avoid a charge of misleading consumers
it could undermine the increasingly popular trend of having users
produce reviews and scores for products and services, said
Britton.
"The future is more information, not less," said Britton. "It is
more opinions, not less. These are all activities that have
happened at a communal level for years and years but with the
advent of the internet we're able to share them across a global
community."
"The internet is allowing us to have a global community. And
you've certainly seen it within consumer products. You bring up
Amazon; but there are literally thousands of sites now that allow
consumers to have a voice. And that's just on the consumer side; on
the media site you have companies like Avvo, but also blogs that
are bringing a certain amount of content to bear to help consumers
make more informed choices."
The suit is not based on defamation law which is famously
liberal in the US. It does raise the question of how such ratings
systems might be dealt with in the UK, though, and whether a score
in the form of just a bald number could ever be defamatory.
Nigel Kissack is a litigation specialist at Pinsent Masons, the
law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM. He said that the question was an
interesting, if unresolved, one.
"I am not aware of any case involving a number being defamatory.
Each case will be looked at on its own facts on whether it
diminishes the reputation of someone who doesn't deserve it in the
mind of the general public."
Kissack said he had found an old case which could shed some
light on the issue. "There was a case in 1912 when a lawyer was
called 'average' by a commentator and he sued for defamation and
didn't succeed. The court held that calling a lawyer average was
not defamatory," said Kissack.
"The number 5: is that average? Or the number 4? Given that all
marking is pretty subjective, there is a degree of flexibility
about the exact mark, it certainly wouldn't be. If a genuinely able
and good lawyer was given a 1 which put him right at the bottom of
the pile, that would harm his reputation."
Kissack said, though, that it would be an unusual case which
tested the potentially defamatory nature of a number. "Damages
aren't huge for defamation these days and getting the proof behind
the process behind the '1' that emerged might put all but the very
boldest or angriest of people off."
