SAN FRANCISCO — Tech industry giants—and a who’s who of internet lawyers—have lined up behind review site Yelp Inc. as it fights a court order forcing the company to remove a negative review of a San Francisco personal injury attorney.
A stream of amicus briefs poured into the California Supreme Court on Monday from technology trade organizations and individual companies such as Google Inc. in Hassell v. Bird, a case considering whether a court can force a website publisher to remove third party-created content in instances where the website itself isn’t a named party. Tech industry lawyers claim that if the ruling against Yelp stands it could create a path for creative lawyers to squelch online speech.
