Demetriades

Plaintiff James Demetriades, who operates restaurants in Mammoth Lakes, filed a complaint seeking an injunction under the unfair competition law (UCL; Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.) and the false advertising law (FAL); Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17500 et seq.) to prevent defendant Yelp, Inc. (Yelp), the operator of a popular online Web site that contains customer reviews of businesses, from making claims about the accuracy and efficacy of its “filter” for unreliable or biased customer reviews. The trial court granted Yelp’s special motion to strike plaintiff’s complaint under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, finding that Yelp’s statements about the filtering of reviews on a social media Web site were matters of public interest. The trial court further found that the public interest exemption of section 425.17, subdivision (b) did not apply because plaintiff asserted a personal financial stake in the case, and that the commercial speech exemption to the anti-SLAPP statute set forth in section 425.17, subdivision (c) did not apply because Yelp’s statements about the filter were not statements of fact, but were “puffery” and opinion.

We conclude that the commercial…