Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The dangerous part is setting limits. Is it limited to spelling? How about word choice? To properly fix word choice, the fixer needs to understand the writer’s intent. That’s a lot to ask of software, given functionality limits, and it’s also a lot to ask of marketers, given ethical and morality limits. (Did I say that out loud?)

Some of this speaks to consistency issues, which is where Legal often gets involved. If you set a reasonable policy and precisely apply it consistently to all comments, it’s hard to get into too much trouble. The very nature of copy editing—even when it is done by software—prevents such a strict consistency. If some edits are done more aggressively with some commenters than others, you have a potential headache.

Consider: You might set a very reasonable policy against obscenity and derogatory comments that could be considered personal. Sounds fair. For example, what if someone says the operating system is really slow. Some people get emotionally passionate about operating systems, and they might take offense at such a comment and consider it personally derogatory. What if the reader is from another country where obscenity definitions are very different from those that apply to the country of the commenter?

Such “Is this really worth it?” debates are why so many firms have a blanket rule that no changes are made and that all comments are immediately published. That policy may be far more dangerous, but Legal is happier because it’s consistent.

It reminds me of the old host liability rulings, where party hosts have different liabilities if their guests get drunk. Some argue that paying a bartender is an act of responsibility, which should give the host more protection. Other courts ruled the opposite, determining that a professional bartender raises the standard and that the bartender should have detected the excessive drinking and stopped it. That’s why some attorneys argue that hosts should have unattended open bars, so they can legitimately claim ignorance as to how much guests drink and, therefore, not prevent them from driving drunk.

Let’s get back to word choice. Let’s say a commenter said the product was “magnifilous.” Did the commenter intend to say magnificent or marvelous? Assuming the commenter can’t be reached (as an operational matter, that’s not even a little practical), does a marketer choose the word that she/he wants to use?

Will posters object and post everywhere that retailer 1234 changed their reviews? Hello, backlash. Even more insidious: Could posters complain that their comments were not fixed? That’s a hard complaint to make: “Hey! You told the world exactly what I told you to tell them. I’ll see you in court.”

Then again, if those posters could prove that you have an inconsistent policy and that you only fix favorable reviews, it might not be such a stretch.