A criminal court in the
southern city of Lecce has sentenced a person found guilty of
writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor to a nine-month jail term.
The court also hit the owner of PromoSalento, which sold fake
reviews using false identities to businesses seeking to raise
their profiles, with a fine of 8,000 euros.
It is set to be a landmark ruling as it is one of the first
legal cases of its kind.
TripAdvisor was a civil plaintiff in the case.
"We think this is a historic sentence for the Internet," said
TripAdvisor's Vice-president and Associate General Counsel Brad
Young.
"Writing false reviews has always been a breach of the law
but this is the first time that the result is a cheat being sent
to prison".
Under the Italian judicial system, rulings are not definitive
until the appeals process has been exhausted and terms of under
two years are usually suspended.
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