Angie's List Sues Amazon Local

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I'm confused. How can Angie's List sue Amazon Local for using "stolen" information. Are you "stealing" information if you use a phone book to call a plumber?

Angie's List has filed suit against Amazon Local and several of its employees, claiming the online deals site used stolen information from Angie's List for its own business. The 42-page suit filed Friday accused Amazon Local of "unlawfully and unfairly competing" with Angie's List.
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Angie's List is a subscription service. AL alleges Amazon created accounts on Angie's List, and then mined the data there for use on their own service, which is both against the Angie's List terms and generally illegal.

If what they allege is true, surely you can see how that might piss them off, no?
 
Wait, isn't Angie's List that service for old people who don't know how to use Google and would rather pay someone instead of learn how? It's not like anything on there is privileged information anyway.
 
Quix said:
Wait, isn't Angie's List that service for old people who don't know how to use Google and would rather pay someone instead of learn how? It's not like anything on there is privileged information anyway.
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No, Angie's List is great, at least in my area. It has really detailed reviews with specifics about various professional service providers (dentists, therapists, plumbers, etc.). It's behind a paywall and the providers themselves are restricted from tampering with their reviews. It's amazing if you need to find a doctor or a dentist in a new or unfamiliar area, or if you need to have a new service done on your home and want a reliable provider without having to track down people for personal recommendations. Since it's behind a paywall and the providers can't read it, the reviews are usually very detailed and candid. Because of the paywall, the information on there absolutely is privileged and protected.

It's basically Yelp, for professionals, without the problems of Yelp. It's saved me a lot of time and money, and I'd recommend it to anyone who values getting the best service and has high expectations for professional providers, especially practitioners of medicine and law.
 
CEpeep said:
AL alleges Amazon created accounts on Angie's List, and then mined the data...
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What data?

Angie's List lists and rates companies that offer services in your area via user feedback. So this means that, since these contractors are listed on Angie's List, they can't be listed on another service? What about the companies on Angie's List that are listed and rated without their knowledge or against their will (members can submit ratings for any company)? Are they property of Angie's List now too? No one else can use them unless they go through Angie's List?
 
Steve said:
What data?
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Well, the case (and the article you linked to) does explain.

Steve said:
Angie's List lists and rates companies that offer services in your area.
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Yes.

Steve said:
So this means that, since these contractors are listed on Angie's List, they can't be listed on another service?
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No? The issue isn't about the fact that the same providers are listed on both AL and on Amazon Local, because you can get that from the phone book. AL alleges that Amazon lifted their curated lists of featured providers (which are selected by manual review by AL employees reading reviews) and plopped it onto Amazon Local. The list of featured providers, and the labor of curating the reviews to select those people and businesses are the property of Angie's List, as per the TOS you agree to when you sign up.

Steve said:
What about the companies on Angie's List that are listed and rated without their knowledge or against their will (members can submit ratings for any company)?
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What about them? The reviews of those businesses that people post to AL (and any additional value AL adds to them) are the property of AL. Just like reviews posted to Yelp or to Google Maps are the property of Yelp and Google, not the people who posted them or the business being reviewed.

Steve said:
Are they property of Angie's List now too? No one else can use them unless they go through Angie's List?
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Those reviews are property of Angie's List, as outlined in their TOS. No one can use those reviews or that review information unless they go through AL.

If Amazon has actually done what Angie's List alleges they have, the case should be pretty clear-cut in court. Not sure how they're going to prove it, but that's a job for their counsel. Hopefully they found a lawyer with good reviews. :D
 
Quix said:
Wait, isn't Angie's List that service for old people who don't know how to use Google and would rather pay someone instead of learn how? It's not like anything on there is privileged information anyway.
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Yes and its also a joke because their reviews are just like the BBB as long as you pay they will be good. Its a joke. Both parties pay, only Angie wins.
 
rudy said:
Yes and its also a joke because their reviews are just like the BBB as long as you pay they will be good. Its a joke. Both parties pay, only Angie wins.
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You can't pay to change your score, but you can pay to appear higher in their list of results. Yelp does the same thing, and it's really my only major complaint with both services. It's pretty obvious when someone has paid though. If you're browsing a list of 4.5 star businesses, and there's a 3-star listed there in the middle, it should be apparent why.
 
Quix said:
I hate to break it to you, but you might have crossed that line into "old person" territory.
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I'm not even 30 yet, but ok. I'll stick with these old fogies who get user-curated reviews before making purchases or signing contracts. I'm very happy with the dentist I found on Angie's List, and the only guy I trust to work on my plumbing is also the top-rated in my town. If only "old people" are looking up reviews before deciding, that just means kids are the only ones getting screwed by unscrupulous shysters. Once they've learned that getting screwed sucks and that you should do research first, you have officially upgraded to "old person."
 
Quix said:
I hate to break it to you, but you might have crossed that line into "old person" territory.
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Based on your last two comments here, I'm a little curious how old *you* are. :eek:

I don't see how using the site makes one a old person. :confused:
 
I'm 26, have procured services from firms listed by Angie's List a few times. I work a lot and it's generally cheaper for me to hire a professional to fix household malfunctions that aren't related to my computers/lan infrastructure or A/V equipment, so long as a competent person or firm is procured to do the work. I hate shoddy work and find AL to be pretty handy for quickly finding a competent person or firm to quickly fix whatever breaks or requires scheduled maintenance (like HVAC crap).
 
CEpeep said:
Well, the case (and the article you linked to) does explain.
Yes.
No? The issue isn't about the fact that the same providers are listed on both AL and on Amazon Local, because you can get that from the phone book. AL alleges that Amazon lifted their curated lists of featured providers (which are selected by manual review by AL employees reading reviews) and plopped it onto Amazon Local. The list of featured providers, and the labor of curating the reviews to select those people and businesses are the property of Angie's List, as per the TOS you agree to when you sign up.
What about them? The reviews of those businesses that people post to AL (and any additional value AL adds to them) are the property of AL. Just like reviews posted to Yelp or to Google Maps are the property of Yelp and Google, not the people who posted them or the business being reviewed.
Those reviews are property of Angie's List, as outlined in their TOS. No one can use those reviews or that review information unless they go through AL.
If Amazon has actually done what Angie's List alleges they have, the case should be pretty clear-cut in court. Not sure how they're going to prove it, but that's a job for their counsel. Hopefully they found a lawyer with good reviews. :D
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Dude, you sound like you work for Angie's List. :eek:

EVERYONE knows how Angle's List works. (In case you missed it.)

Angie’s List misleads consumers by prominently promising that “businesses don’t pay” and that it’s a consumer-driven service supported by membership fees. But almost 70 percent of the company’s revenues come from advertising purchased by the service providers being rated.

-Consumer Reports
September 2013
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Unless you are saying that Amazon is seeking out companies that have been willing to pay for advertising in exchange for higher rankings....wait a minute....maybe that's exactly what Amazon is doing! It's genius!!! :)
 
I have heard tons of horror stories about angies list and people with good high scores screwing people over or doing shit work. The reality is not a ton of people participate and a contractor who cares can easily get a couple friends and family to rig their score. They can also give incentives to people they worked with and were happy to post. All forcing people to pay does is self select for a certain gullible type of consumer. If a contractor pays $100 to rig up a slurry of good reviews that can easily be cheaper than advertising and easily drown out the bad ones. All angies list did was make astro turfing accessible to the smallest of businesses.
 
Steve said:
Dude, you sound like you work for Angie's List. :eek:
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Really? Please take it up with me in a PM if you want to discuss something like that. I don't work for either Angie's List or Amazon and am a satisfied customer of both. It's better for me if they both get along.
 
CEpeep said:
No, Angie's List is great, at least in my area. It has really detailed reviews with specifics about various professional service providers (dentists, therapists, plumbers, etc.). It's behind a paywall and the providers themselves are restricted from tampering with their reviews. It's amazing if you need to find a doctor or a dentist in a new or unfamiliar area, or if you need to have a new service done on your home and want a reliable provider without having to track down people for personal recommendations. Since it's behind a paywall and the providers can't read it, the reviews are usually very detailed and candid. Because of the paywall, the information on there absolutely is privileged and protected.

It's basically Yelp, for professionals, without the problems of Yelp. It's saved me a lot of time and money, and I'd recommend it to anyone who values getting the best service and has high expectations for professional providers, especially practitioners of medicine and law.
Click to expand...

Actually the other guy was right, I found no information on there worth a damn, I gave it a chance but it was about on par with google and yelp (favoring google over yelp of course)

It is for middle aged white women who never figured out the internet.
 
dbu my middle age white sister just asked me to check angies list for a plumber but i found it on google. the problem with google and amazon in the last year or so is the high volume of paid for /fake reviews.

a. amazon: fake knockoff products from china with high scores. extremely dangerous for health supplements.

b. google: milwaukee is horrendous with fake reviews by advertising companies. if a company has more than 20 reviews odds are its a scam in the milwaukee/south wisconsin areas.

click some of the reviewers >> they all stayed in the same hotel, went to the same dentist, and visited the same vet clinic. wouldn't be weird in a small town, but when the three locations are 3 hours a part and those are the only reviews = scam.
 
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