Talk about karma: This is the story of a naive/agressive/angry New York dentist and her diabolical plan to control patient reviews — that is now backfiring in a big way. TechDirt and CNET have some good coverage.
Her name is Stacy Makhnevich and she is now being punished on Yelp for getting patients to sign an agreement (which is illegal) that turns over copyright on their reviews to her — so that she can subsequently demand publishers remove them on some dubious copyright infringement theory.
This woman has now damaged her reputation, well beyond anything that might have occurred with a couple of negative reviews. All the negative press coverage will reach TV in NY and the backlash on Yelp itself will spill over to other sites.
This scorched Earth approach that she took could wind up destroying her practice and literally costing her hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and potential legal fees.
December 1st, 2011 at 7:20 pm
There’s an entrenched belief among those who are less familiar with online interactions that they might still be able to have majority control over their message/reputation. The truth in the Business 2.0 world is that one’s message and reputation are now a far more collaborative affair — something companies will discover if they refuse to acknowledge and adapt to the reality of the situation.
I wonder if she got an attorney’s help in crafting the patient agreement — surely such an attorney should also take some flack over this, if they neglected to advise her that this course of action might be unrealistic and unenforceable?
December 1st, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Exactly.
December 1st, 2011 at 7:33 pm
The forms were from an organization called http://www.medicaljustice.com/
December 1st, 2011 at 9:16 pm
What I find most interesting is that on the Yahoo blog referenced on the Yelp page (http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/dentist-threatens-sue-patient-negative-yelp-review-131752629.html) Medical Justice “claims about 3,000 doctors and dentists use the forms, according to Public Citizen.” I wonder if the reason doc Makhnevich is feeling all the backlash is because she’s the only one of those 3,000 who actually pursued legal action against a customer, or was she just unlucky enough to catch the media’s eye? This whole story just goes to show that even though 3,000 professionals might be doing the exact same thing, a career can be threatened by one bad story, or one bad review.
Also, as she is one of 3,000 clients who took Medical Justice’s advice and used their forms, shouldn’t THEY be the ones getting the bad press on this? All she did was “me too” a bad idea that 2,999 other people had done before her.
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:43 am
I think Medical Justice is getting bad press, which will continue via this class action. I do think that the reason this case is so sensation is because she had the chutzpah to charge her client for the bad reviews. That’s really the outrageous media “hook.”
December 2nd, 2011 at 8:48 am
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December 5th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
This story is priceless. Is a service professional gives you confidentiality paperwork… walk away. Social media rocks.
December 5th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Agree with Greg M – you have got to place most blame on Medical Justice, but WOW – she really took things to the next level! Now, what’s worse: this, or the “reputation management” firms that essentially “create” positive reviews to control and suppress the negative?