Appeals Court Shuts Down Bogus Private Enforcements of the ‘Yelp Law’–Moss v. GoDaddy

The “Yelp Law,” California Civil Code 1670.8, has two main provisions: (a)(1) A contract or proposed contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services may not include a provision waiving the consumer’s right to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods or services. (a)(2) It shall be unlawful to threaten or to seek to enforce a provision made unlawful under this section, or to otherwise penalize a consumer for making any statement protected under this section. These laws seek to foster consumer reviews by stopping businesses from contractually restricting such reviews. The same principle animates the Consumer Review Fairness Act. While pro-consumer review laws are good policy, California dubiously attached a private right of action to 1670.8. In its wake, a small group of lawyers have initiated a spate of bogus lawsuits. The lawyers overread businesses’ TOSes, twisting ordinary TOS provisions into putative…