What did you say about me?
August 13th, 2008 | by David |
Techcrunch has a post about a VC firm that is subpoenaing the records of TheFunded.com. TheFunded is a site that allows entrepreneurs to rate and comment on the Venture Capital firms that they have dealt with in pursuing funding. All activity on TheFunded is done under a promise of anonymity. EDF Ventures is testing that promise with the subpoena. They want to know who had some bad things to say about them.
This is not good. I hope the judge throws it out the second it crosses her desk. What’s next? Will Yelp have to let McDonald’s know how to find me if I leave a bad review about a Big Mac? Maybe Al Gore will want to see the names of the people that didn’t vote for him?
I appreciate people that are willing to put their name behind a review or a grade or a vote. Anonymity can be a tool used by those who have no knowledge of the entity they are reviewing. It can be used by competitors to throw grenades. But anonymity can also be used by people who have legitimate concerns over repercussions of providing honest assessments.
TheFunded goes to great lengths to protect its contributors. SupplierView will do the same.
