A company won against Kununu in court. If a disputed review is to remain online, Kununu would have to reveal the real name of a commenter. The CEO explains what happens next.
Ready to “fight all the way to the highest authority”: Kununu CEO Nina Zimmermann
It’s about a lot. Negative reviews on Kununu can harm companies, no question. And just as clear: On a review platform where comments are made anonymously, it is of course possible that they are not truthful. But: If users cannot remain anonymous, they are less likely to criticize their employers – even justified criticism.
In February 2024, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court decided in an individual case that the operators of the Kununu platform should be obliged to provide the real name of a reviewer to the criticized employer. If Kununu does not mention the name, the review must be deleted.
Plaintiffs rejoice, Kununu announces further negotiations
The plaintiff company’s lawyer, Jan Meyer, co-owner of a law firm called ” Sternen-Advo “, with the website slogan “We checkmate negative reviews,” is holding the decision he fought for, according to the online legal magazine Legal Tribune Online for “revolutionary”. The CEO of the rating platform Kununu, Nina Zimmermann, announced in an interview with Gründerszene that she and her team would “fight all the way to the highest authority if necessary” to defend themselves against this ruling. There is a lot at stake here for Kununu too: the idea of the platform, which promises real, authentic feedback from employees about their companies, is based on the promise of anonymity towards employers.
We took a closer look at the case.
Last year alone, people wrote around 700,000 company reviews on Kununu. On average, around ten percent of all reviews have a complaint at some point, according to Kununu. In other words: Someone, usually a responsible person from the company being criticized, complains about the rating. Such complaints are received by the approximately 30-strong Content Quality & Support department. And there it is checked whether the complaint is justified.
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Top Reasons for Disputing Kununu Reviews
The most common reasons, as a lawyer explains to us, who, like his colleague from Sterne-Advo, spends a large part of his time taking action against negative reviews on online portals, including Kununu, are: abusive criticism, false statements of fact and no employee status. The latter is relatively universally applicable: In an anonymous Kununu review, a criticized company can state that it has not been proven that this anonymous person actually works in this company.
Then Kununu has a duty: In recent years, and most recently in 2022, the Federal Court of Justice has specified regulations for rating platforms in Germany. Accordingly, they are legally obliged to investigate any information that could suggest that the person making the evaluation does not work or has worked in the company.
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Specifically, it would look like this, explains the head of the Kununu support team, Katharina Posch, to Gründerszene: Employees in her team check each report on a case-by-case basis. Manually. If the complaint is justified and violates Kununu’s guidelines, Kununu employees will temporarily take the review offline. Even if the workforce is in doubt and Kununu has no proof. In the next step, the team then contacts the authors of the disputed reviews. They ask for documents that clearly show that the person works or has worked for the company in question. According to Katharina Posch, Director Content Quality & Support, this could be a salary statement, a business card or the employment contract. For Kununu, the real name must be visible in the documents.
Decision of the OLG versus BGH legislation
The case law applicable at the federal level regulates what we have to do with this evidence,” explains Nina Zimmermann, CEO at kununu. “They would have to pass this on to the company that doubts the employees – but this can be done anonymously, i.e. in a heavily redacted form. Redacted so heavily that it is impossible to understand who the person who wrote the review is. It must only be clear that it was a person who was demonstrably in an employment relationship with this company.
But that was exactly not enough for a company in Hamburg – and they sued. The Hamburg regional court, which had jurisdiction in the first instance, rejected the company’s application for an interim injunction requiring Kununu to delete the review. It found the anonymized proof of activity that had been provided to be sufficient. However, the plaintiffs were not satisfied with this decision and continued to argue. They filed a complaint, the case went to the next instance and thus to the Higher Regional Court – and that actually decided differently. In order to resolve doubts about the authenticity of the review, the anonymity of the person writing it must be lifted from the company. If this does not happen, Kununu must remove the post (decision of January 8, 2024, no. 324 O 559/23).
The court argues that an appeal to the “data protection” of the review writer does not apply here. It is important to know as many facts as possible in order to check the legitimacy of the review – and this also includes the real name of the author.
Kununu: “We will continue to protect identities”
It is important for Nina Zimmermann to emphasize that this is a decision in an individual case. One that is also temporary, because Kununu wants to contest it with all her might. In all other cases, the same applies as before: If someone doubts the authenticity of a review, Kununu requests evidence, but only passes it on anonymously. Zimmermann even issued an official statement on this: “We will continue to protect the identities of our users and do not see ourselves obliged to release the real names of our users due to the decision of the Hamburg Higher Regional Court.”
Zimmermann also emphasizes this point again and again in conversations with Gründerszene. It seems absolutely crucial to her; she feels a great responsibility here: “We have to protect our users,” she says. “Because they have an unequal power relationship with the companies.”
She also sees Kununu in a special role when it comes to dealing with rating platforms in general: “It’s different when I say: I didn’t like a burger in the restaurant on the corner – or when I criticize my employer.” The latter can become an existential issue. “People can lose their jobs.”
This is also likely to be so important for Zimmermann because the OLG’s decision could threaten their companies if it were to prevail. Fear of negative consequences could prevent people from expressing criticism of their employers on Kununu in the future. The images drawn by the companies on Kununu could become less authentic. She therefore emphasizes her vision again: “Kununu wants to enable people to write critical things – in a safe space,” says Zimmermann. “We don’t want to rush or create a legal vacuum.” Ultimately, the goal is to “make the world of work a little better” by allowing companies to use the platform to find out what employees don’t like and thus give them the chance to do it better.