Yahoo News Optus ordered to reveal identity of user who left negative Google review of Melbourne dentist
Optus has been ordered to reveal the identity of a user who left an anonymous review on Google about a Melbourne dentist, who wants to sue the user for defamation damages.
Guardian Australia broke the news in February that Melbourne dentist Dr Matthew Kababbe had successfully compelled Google through the federal court to hand over the details of a user who left a negative review about his business.
The user known only as CBsm 23 claimed the dentist made the experience “extremely awkward and uncomfortable” and the procedure was “a complete waste of time”.
Kababbe was successful in obtaining an IP address associated with the review from Google, which revealed it was connected to an Optus account.
The federal court this week served a subpoena on Optus ordering the company to hand over information about which account was assigned the IP address at the time the review was made.
A spokeswoman for Optus did not provide a comment about the case, but said that Optus “complies with all government laws and regulations, including court orders”.
Kababbe’s lawyer, Mark Stanarevic of Matrix Legal, told Guardian Australia it had been difficult for Kababbe and some of his other clients to get Google to act on false negative reviews, which he said can be extremely damaging for people’s businesses.
“You don’t know what business you’ve lost from the people who didn’t come because of the bad review,” he said.
“We are at the mercy of Google, that’s the issue.”
It is the latest in an increasing trend of people taking action against Google to find the identities of people behind negative reviews, which Google has been reluctant to remove.
Stanarevic is also representing Melbourne gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson in her bid to unmask a user who left a negative review about her law firm, Garde Wilson Criminal Lawyers. On Thursday the federal court again ordered Google to provide information about an account that left a negative review Google had not removed, despite Garde-Wilson stating that the law firm had never acted for the user.
Stanarevic said users had the right to anonymity online, but there were limits.
“There has to be a balance between freedom of speech and the rights of small business owners at the behest of a global monopoly. They’re competing rights,” he said.
“If someone has time on their hands, and has malicious intent to destroy that small business they can actually quite easily do it,” he said.
