Australian Restaurant Taking Legal Action Against TripAdvisor

Yelp might be getting all the flak in terms of awful reviewers with nothing to contribute (other than Stefan K., obviously), but fellow user-review site TripAdvisor might just be a bit worse.

A restaurateur in Australia has threatened to pursue legal action against TripAdvisor after the company refused to take down her restaurant's listing after it changed ownership.

Claire Rampling, the restaurateur, complained that there is one negative review on the site, while the rest are positive, which could destroy her business and reputation. The negative comment called her a "stressed out *****," saying the food was so bad they'd 'rather go to KFC,'" The Australian reports.

Meanwhile, TripAdvisor has recommended that owners contact the company if they are being blackmailed, but will not remove listings at management's requests. Owners should respond to negative reviews on their businesses' sites instead, a representative said.

Of course, this is following an announcement from the Accommodation Association of Australia back in August that said TripAdvisor reviews were found to be "subjective, inaccurate, and inclusive of malicious content some of which aren't even relevant to the property they were applied to." In fact, back in February the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that TripAdvisor can no longer claim that their reviews are "trusted."

Rampling, in the meantime, hopes that eventually review sites will ask reviewers to prove that they dined at the restaurant. Good luck with that; she might be better off recording them in a fake accent and playing them over bathroom speakers.