Defamation is the act of damaging the good reputation of someone (or a company) by communicating false statements about them.
In Australia, if your review does not identify any staff within the company and the company has 10 or more employees, your review is unlikely to be defamatory.
Provided your review is an expression of opinion (rather than a statement of fact) and you honestly held the opinion at the time you submitted your review to ProductReview.com.au, you are protected by the law and should not feel legally threatened by anyone to remove your review.
To ensure this safeguard is available to you it's important to consider the following when posting:
- Can an individual be identified? Just because you have not named the individual does not mean they are not identifiable.
- While your review should be an expression of your opinion you still need to ensure your claims aren’t defamatory.
- Can you prove your claims? If you want to claim that your defamatory comments are true you will need to provide standard court evidence to support your claims.
Find out more about defamation:
- https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html
- https://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/defamation-law-online-publication/
- https://www.artslaw.com.au/articles/entry/the-new-uniform-defamation-laws/
What to do if you think you have been defamed
- Businesses can post a response as an official Brand Manager (Posting Guidelines apply).
- You should report the content (review, comment, question, etc.) by clicking 'More' at the bottom of the post and then clicking 'Report'.
- Please also read ProductReview.com.au's Legal Threats Policy to ensure that you’re responding in an appropriate manner.