Positive reviews may be reviewed and deleted if necessary

Positive reviews are a marketing tool for all marketplaces and review platforms. And there is always a legal dispute about how to deal with them. The physician rating platform Jameda has been ruled right in the second instance by the Munich Higher Regional Court, which ruled that the platform is allowed to check the validity of positive ratings and, if necessary, delete them.

In the case at hand, Jameda deleted ten positive reviews of a doctor. The doctor sued against the deletion. He demanded that Jameda republish the ten deleted reviews. The platform rejects this because the posts have been suspicious and unverifiable after review.

The Munich Higher Regional Court now upheld the Regional Court in that the deletion of the ratings did not constitute a breach of contract on the part of Jameda. Furthermore, the deletion of the ratings did not infringe the plaintiff’s rights to his established and practiced business pursuant to Section 823 (1) of the German Civil Code. 1 BGB, as there was no unlawful interference with the plaintiff’s right to his established and practiced business. Jameda was also not obliged to disclose the details of the algorithm used to detect suspicious reviews, as this would be a trade secret of the defendant that could not be disclosed.

The ruling definitely strengthens the rights of mediation and rating platforms, but also of communities, which logically also have to deal with many fake ratings.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.