Local business ratings and review service Angie’s List is suing Trusty’s, which we recently reviewed and likened to a sort of Yelp for blue-collar workers, over claims that the latter startup’s founder Christopher Kody illegally obtained thousands of files from Angie’s List in an effort to jumpstart Trusty’s.
According to Indystar, the suit alleges that Cody joined Angie’s List as a regular member and subsequently used an automated software program in multiple sessions to harvest nearly 10,000 reports, ratings and other information which he then pumped into Trusty’s.
Angie’s List says Cody practiced ‘industrial espionage’ using the bot, as spokeswoman Cheryl Reed put it. Trusty’s founder declined to comment on the matter, but had his attorney dispute all allegations with the promise to “defend against them vigorously”.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for next month.
(Thanks to Brandon Powell for the tip)
Angie’s List is itself a fraud because it removes poor ratings for businesses who advertise.
Exactly it’s tantamount to extortion. Theres a class action lawsuit in there somewhere.
I wonder if I started a site and called a site annaslist.com if I would just get the ol’ CAD
Derek – January 14th, 2009 at 5:52 am PST
Angie’s List is itself a fraud because it removes poor ratings for businesses who advertise.
And you know this how?
Angie’s List actually revokes the advertising privileges of advertisers who don’t maintain at least a “B” rating and they don’t remove any reports unless they cannot be verified. Check your facts before you spew inaccuracies just for the sake of stirring the pot.
This kind of thing happens all the time, but I think most aren’t so blatant/stupid. Doesn’t sound like either company is very scrupulous so maybe they’ll both get flushed out of the mix.
where are the court filings?
Wait…how else do you get data for your start up?
Although both sites are really at the bottom of the barrel, it will be interesting to see the outcome because it could set a precedence for other page-scraping sites all around.
Keep an eye on this and see if anything comes out of it. I know I hate it when I see new sites pop up that have obviously pulled data from my sites or feeds.
I don’t think the issue is that he used a page scraping tool, it’s that he’s posting their info as his own. It would be the same if he sat there and copied it by hand and plugged it in to his site.
Really? Angie’s List is bottom of the barrel? The consistently make the list of one of the best places to work in Indiana. Their customers love them, and they provide a valuable service (advice on which plumbers, electricians, etc. are trustworthy). If their members complain about a company, that company is not allowed on the list, paid advertiser or not, from what I understand.
By the way, the Indianapolis Star is a daily newspaper owned by Gannett, not a magazine. They’re the largest paper in the state and one of the larger papers in the country.
Looks like Angie’s list employees are out in force today
A quick visit to my blog would show that I don’t work for Angie’s List. Nice try though. I’m just a happy subscriber. Also, I like any business that puts as much money into restoring deteriorating parts of downtown Indianapolis as Angie’s List has. They are a VERY popular company in this city, which is where they are based.
Smuckers routinely tops the lists of best places to work, yet their jams, jellies and marmalades are not the best. How could that be?
where do search engines get there content? o.p.w. other peoples websites.
JudgeLocator.com – justice served
That’s a really silly comparison.
I don’t think that the problem here is with page scraping itself. Where these guys went wrong is logging into Angie’s List to do the scrape (almost certainly in violation of the ToS). If the data is publically available I don’t think there is much you can do to stop a scrapper (at least legally). Other cases like Ebay v. Bidder’s Edge have all won against scrapers by other means, in the Ebay case it was because Bidder’s Edge was using an enormous amount of their bandwidth.
This is shady business to say the least.
A few months ago I did a test to see which websites would remove scathing comments regarding their paying advertisers. I submitted reviews to all the major review sites as well as the various yellow page sites.
Yelp, Citysearch and Angies List were all serious offenders. While they did not necessarily remove the negative reviews right away, over a period of several months all three sites removed them with no explanation. Citysearch was the worst, having removed the negative review less than a week after the local business became an advertiser and refused to respond to numerous emails inquiring as to why the review was deleted.
It is a well known fact, verified by many former Angies List employees that the site is highly manipulated. Deny it all you want, with membership tanking we can all expect that Angies List will become even more desperate and contrived.
Did you actually use the companies?
Angie’s List *will* remove a report if you can’t prove you used the company. It’s how they keep competing companies from putting out a ton of negative reviews against each other.
That’s why I use Consumers’ CHECKBOOK (no adverising, nonprofit, been around a long time, http://www.checkbook.org) but I don’t think they’re available in very many cities.
The legal issues related to snippeting and linking back to content are complicated and very important to how the web works. It would be great to see some of that laid out for the techcrunch community.
However, logging it a closed site and abusing the terms of service is a clear no no and will create significant issues for the defendent.
Angie’s list sells access to its proprietary content, it does not let it be seen openly. Logging in and taking it is like logging into a paid financial data site and taking thier information and putting it out on the web.
As for Angie’s list being bottom of the barrel, I see them providing a valuable service to a bunch of consumers who pay for it with a subscription. I actually have not used them, I have used ServiceMagic instead but if you have ever had to find a person to fix that electrical outlet that does not work—these guys are a lifesaver
I wonder what Trusty’s was thinking, and this sounds nothing like an aggregator unless they stole from a bunch of sites and not just a 66million dollar startup.
simplyhired.com which i don’t know how is legal steals (er.. aggregates) all the job listings from as many job sites as they can) I guess no one sues them as they link to the respective site where people apply to the job on monster.com or yahoo hot jobs.
so sounds like Trusty’s not only riding the coattails of another startup but the real rub is they don’t link to them and credit them. i don’t see how trusty’s is not found guilty.
I’ll tell you how: “guilt” is a concept used only in criminal cases.
Angie’s List absolutely does not delete negative reports without justification and notification to the member who posted the report. The advertising status of a service company isn’t a factor. We delete reports only when they’ve been submitted in violation of our policies. If you’d like to talk about this, Derek, please feel free to contact me directly at cherylr@angieslist.com
Who are you kidding! There are many service professionals out there who claimed they were bullied into advertising on Angie’s List. TechCrunch readers can find out the truth by reading:
http://www.ripo...pOff0364982.htm
http://www.hous...iscussionID=139
http://knaddiso...gies-list-sucks
LOL, Hey angieslist u dummies folks! You just gave “Trusty’s” free advertisement to your competitor hehe! !!
Another suit dealing with listings (not ratings and reviews) that was lost.
http://guidingr...27/1254630.html
It is interesting that Angie’s List is developing a pretty solid bad reputation around, look at the comments at the original article and the links Derek pointed to. Even if Trustys gets crushed by this lawsuit, this market is still wide open for new competitors to jump in.
Hmm here is the Angies List TOS, http://www.angi...rAgreement.aspx
They write: “You acknowledge and agree that You will not access, reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, re-sell, visit or otherwise exploit for any commercial, educational (or any other non-personal) purpose the reviews and ratings and any content, without the express written consent of Angie’s List”
BUT, they also dont claim ownership of the actual reviews, so it may be the type of thing where the “copyright” value is in AngiesList’s collection as a whole, so as long as Trusty’s collection is at least a little different than angies list, they might be okay.
Christopher Kody’s account, on the other hand, is probably toast.
Angies List Subscription $7, Off-Shored Angies List Scraper Bot $500, Getting Sued by Angies List $$Priceless$$.
http://www.bighardhat.org