Legality of using TA Reviews on a blog/website?

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JBloggs

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Does anyone know what the legality of using a review in a quote from TA on a blog and/or website? If I provide a link to the REVIEW and TA?
 
From TripAdvisor's "Terms of Use"
PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES[/h2]
The content and information on this Website (including, but not limited to, messages, data, information, text, music, sound, photos, graphics, video, maps, icons, software, code or other material), as well as the infrastructure used to provide such content and information, is proprietary to us. You agree not to otherwise modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell or re-sell any information, software, products, or services obtained from or through this Website. Additionally, you agree not to:
  • (i) use this Website or its contents for any commercial purpose;
  • (ii) access, monitor or copy any content or information of this Website using any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means or any manual process for any purpose without our express written permission;
  • (iii) violate the restrictions in any robot exclusion headers on this Website or bypass or circumvent other measures employed to prevent or limit access to this Website;
  • (iv) take any action that imposes, or may impose, in our discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
  • (v) deep-link to any portion of this Website for any purpose without our express written permission; or
  • (vi) "frame", "mirror" or otherwise incorporate any part of this Website into any other website without our prior written authorization.
  • (vii) attempt to modify, translate, adapt, edit, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any software programs used by TripAdvisor in connection with the Website or the services
So, no it's not strictly legal. However, you can apparently get written permission to use a quote.
This is another reason I prefer B&B.com over TripAdvisor. From them, I actually have a widget that posts the actual reviews on my web page. When guests see how highly we are rated on the first page, many book without even looking at the rest of the website (which is sometimes an irritant).
 
It certainly doesn't make any sense that TA would MIND you quoting someone on the site and giving a link to the quote. Are they really going to say, 'Cease and desist promoting our website for your own nefarious purposes'?
Hope not because I see on FB innkeepers are quoting reviews on TA and leading people right to the page. TA must track traffic and realize all those links from FB are not from ads.
 
Okay so with all of that PT I have deleted the quotes and links to TA (it was for a government org blog and felt I was treading on thin water posting any quotes from TA.) They are very strict about copyright, so that answered it for me, thank you.
As a person, owning this inn, I will use them at will...
PT you can post the widget from your TA on your website, blog and social media as well, in fact they really want you to, obviousely. I only wanted to cut n paste two nice reviews I saw, not the whole she-bang.
 
on a slightly different note ... i read that if you post a link to reviews somewhere, not just on ta ... whether the reviews are good, bad, indifferent or a mix, your business is seen as reliable and up front and people like it.
haha, i hope i didn't read that here on innspiring!
embaressed_smile.gif
 
If you posted an image of the review and didn't put anything descriptive in the "alt" tag of your code, then the reviews would be seen but not spidered by any search engine. If you actually used a nice font and created an image of the review excerpt in Photoshop, then it wouldn't even look like the original. It's doubtful that the review police would ever find it.
Legal? Meh. Sneaky? You betcha!
Worst case scenario. They'd ask you to remove it.
review.jpg
 
technically in the uk you are not allowed to use a review unless you know who wrote it - however I don't think anyone has ever got in trouble about it yet. The only reason i know is there was a big hoo harr when it was announced as everyone and their mother has a trip adviser widget.
 
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