DFK! wrote:
Talya wrote:
Midgen wrote:
Review sites are completely pointless if users aren't free to post completely anonymous reviews.
As both a (former) anonymous reviewer, and consumer of anonymous reviews, I doubt I will even bother to use sites like yelp any more.
Or ensure Yelp has no way to figure out who you are when you post there.
Total anonymity from directed internet search efforts by properly equipped and trained individuals is a myth.
It really isn't. First they need a warrant to force a site like Yelp to reveal your account.
Then when they realize that account info is useless, they need the ip. Then they track it down to the provider, and need a warrant to get the provider to reveal who leased that IP at the time of posting. Then they find out it's McDonald's, and they try to find out what McDonald's customer was connected to their wireless router at the time... they need a warrant to even force McDonald's to reveal that information, and then they find out...wait, McDonald's doesn't make people log on to their free wi-fi. It's an open network with no records of any kind.
Free wi-fi with no account info required is pretty much ubiquitous these days. In the unlikely event they get a warrant to force the provider to reveal who owns the IP you posted from, they're going to get Starbucks/McDonald's/your neighbor's unsecured wireless router/whatever. And the legal pressure of someone trying to track down who posted an anonymous review when there's no evidence of any crime or even libelous claim is going to prevent them from even getting that far.
You can argue that that's a bit of a pain in the neck to achieve anonymity, but seriously, only logging on to your anonymous accounts from free public wi-fi locations is far less of an inconvenience than the futile attempt to track you down. One requires a five minute drive and the purchase of a $1 coffee. The other requires tens of thousands of dollars of billable lawyer time and man-hours, likely for nothing.
If you're really paranoid, layer some "Anonymizer" security (or TOR) on top of that. Sure, a dedicated enough intelligence organization like the NSA could still track you down, but a company angry about your product review doesn't have those resources.