What would Jeff Jarvis do?
Rebecca Reisner has a piece up over at BusinessWeek on how a new website is helping contractors deal with deadbeat customers. The company, BusinessBeware.biz, gives contractors a forum where they can can file complaints and give feedback about hard to please customers. Contractors can check the site before taking on new work to avoid these customers.
Of course, a site like this is going to be a litigation magnet -- contractors self-publish derogatory statements about people with a demonstrated proclivity to be confrontational -- but no one wants to see a hardworking carpenter or plumber get stiffed. This certainly turns the tables on the Jarvisonian notion of rapping Dell Computers on your web site to get better customer service.
I was interviewed for the piece but much of what I talked about was covered by other people in the article so I am left defending the contractors without dwelling too much on the need for contractors to be careful about what they publish on the web -- pay wall or no.
Other observers, however, wouldn't let fear of litigation stop them from making legitimate complaints via Web sites like BusinessBeware.biz. "It's the other side of the coin—there are a million sites where customers complain," says Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Assn. in New Rochelle, N.Y. "If businesses want to use the Internet to post information, it's fine as long as it's true. Businesses have a right to protect their interests—within the limits of defamation and privacy law, of course."
I told Resiner to come back in a year so she can write the follow-up piece on how the site has been shut down to a flood of legal threats (see Campus, Juicy).
