When companies have to tolerate poor employer reviews

After an employee of an IT company anonymously posted harsh, negative, and polemical reviews of the company on an employer review website, even writing about manipulated sales and incompetent managers, the company unsuccessfully demanded the release of user data in court. A ruling with implications for other industries, such as the hotel industry.

An employee's anonymous review of his own IT employer on a review site was harsh. Not only did he judge that "the only capable leader of this company is a copper cable" and that his own superiors were "incompetent," he also accused the company of manipulating financial figures.

The company considered the incident to be a criminal offense of defamation under Section 187 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and a violation of corporate personality rights, whereupon it demanded that the platform operators, via the Aschaffenburg Regional Court, hand over all of the employee's data in order to initiate legal action.

When defamatory criticism cannot be prosecuted

The court based its claim on Section 21, Paragraph 2, Sentence 2 of the new Telemedia Data Protection Act (TDDDG). According to this Act, platform operators can be compelled to hand over data if the content is criminal. However, the court rejected the request. While the choice of language was harsh and polemical, the court considered the statements to be protected by freedom of expression. There was neither criminal insult nor defamation. The court also rejected the claim of defamatory criticism, as the statements had a recognizable factual connection, for example, to the company's working practices. Furthermore, the judges found that the criticism was not clearly directed against the company itself, but against individual, unnamed superiors.

The Higher Regional Court of Bamberg, as the next higher instance, confirmed the Regional Court's ruling, stating that it could not have demanded the disclosure of the IP address anyway, since Google has its headquarters abroad.

Consequences for the hotel and hospitality industry

The ruling has far-reaching consequences, especially for companies in the hotel and hospitality industry, which rely heavily on online reviews. It makes it clear that a right to information can only be enforced in cases of clear violations of the law—such as demonstrably false statements of fact or formal insults. Emotional, subjective, or excessive criticism generally remains protected. Companies should therefore examine reviews objectively and only take legal action if the content is criminally relevant. In many cases, a factual, public response is the better strategy.