This week, Gawker has been discussing the case of a very unhappy bookshop owner that had received a bad review on Yelp, sent abusive messages to the author and ended up visiting him at his home for an in-person confrontation.

Diane Goodman, owner of Ocean Ave. Books, had seemingly asked for her private messages to the reviewer -‘Sean C’ – removed from a public forum. He had posted them to prove to skeptical Yelp users that his reports of abusive email from Goodman were in fact true. Throughout the course of one afternoon, she had called him a ‘coward’ and ‘trash’ (amongst other things) in response to a review that labelled her shop a ‘total mess’.

Goodman is then said to have apologised immediately, but was upset that the conversation could still be found when searching for her company’s name. She apparently then phoned Yelp directly, but it seems that she didn’t quite get the response she was looking for. Her last attempt was to visit Yelp HQ after doing a little digging for the address online, but was ‘ignored and turned away’.

Then, things got a little scary. Reports are varied, but what’s definite is that she somehow found the reviewer’s home address, and went to see him in person.

One of the most concerning aspects of this story is that Yelp firmly stated that they had in no way divulged any information about ‘Sean C’s’ home address to the owner of the bookshop, he had not purchased anything when reviewing the shop and has an unlisted address. It seems that with the right tools (or enough desire), you can find anyone. Yelp eventually deleted the thread, but it seems to have arrived too late in the day to make a real difference to the outcome of events.

There are several things to take away from this story. First, it’s important to remember that just because you’re writing online, this does not mean that you are dissociated from what you’ve written. Writing a review and forgetting it is an easy thing to do for a reviewer, but what goes on the web, stays on the web.

On the other hand, though you might be upset about something you read about yourself or your business online, there are better ways to deal with it than visiting a person’s house. Negative feedback can often be extremely valuable to a business, and asking unhappy consumers ‘what we can do to improve?’ can often turn a bad experience into a loyal customer.

Finally, Yelp’s customer service leaves a lot to be desired in this instance. As Gawker has pointed out, the company might have been able to placate Goodman by removing the thread, or help her by acting as a mediator. There could have had a much worse outcome to this situation, with which the brand would have been forever associated. Yelp cannot be responsible for the actions of their users or reviewers, but they can try and help to keep the peace.