Very interesting topic, and not easily addressed. On the one hand, the idea of an online hosting agency such as Trip Advisor 'suppressing' factual, relevant reports of dangerous criminal activity at facilities travelers are researching is scary.
On the other hand (yes, there is another hand), someone acting for a competitor can make false allegations, and something as simple as a (alleged) woman falsely reporting 'she' saw someone up-skirting with a hidden camera at a resort can scare a bunch of prospective customers off. Or let's say a dive op. is popular in Cozumel, and a competitor having trouble making ends meet sets up an account using false name, etc..., and claims to've dove with them last week and that a dive master groped her. How many women researching Cozumel dive op.s for a trip the next few weeks are going to chance it?
Do you let people post serious, business reputation destroying allegations without anyone filing charges? Do they have to file a complaint? What if police don't investigate? What if it never makes it to trial (likely, since the victims are often foreigners in town briefly)? Does there have to be a conviction? If there's a plea-bargain, do you list the original charge, or the lesser charge pled guilty to?
And, as the linked article got into, what if the perpetrator wasn't a hotel employee? What if it were a fellow customer? If an unknown assailant commits a rape at Hotel X, should that hotel be sort of 'black-balled' by women for a few months?
Many years ago, I had a Murphy's Law poster on the wall of the camper trailer I lived in at the time. One pithy saying from it - 'Where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit.' In these matters I'm a customer, not a business owner, and of course I 'want to know.' If I were a business owner with a career, family and employees depending on that business, and a couple of inflammatory (& practically untraceable) false allegations on Trip Advisor might sink my struggling business...wonder what it'd look like to me then?
Richard.
