Extortion Claims Against Ripoff Report Can Proceed–Selker v. Xcentric

My prior blog post on this case summarized:

I’ve blogged many Ripoff Report cases over the years, but it’s been a while since my last one (looks like 2018?). In this case, the plaintiff alleges that someone posted a false attack review; he paid Ripoff Report $2,500 to deindex the review; and he tried to enter into Ripoff Report’s “VIP arbitration” service but wouldn’t agree to the arbitration clause and therefore wasn’t able to get the service. [Added: Selker claims he suffered various business setbacks due to the report.] He brought a state court class action lawsuit against Ripoff Report, alleging violations of CA B&P 17200 and the implied covenant of good faith. Ripoff Report removed the case to federal court. The plaintiff successfully remanded the case back to state court and got some of its attorneys’ fees covered.

2.5+ years after the remand to state court, Ripoff Report has appealed the case to the California Appeals Court because the lower court denied Ripoff Report’s anti-SLAPP motion to strike. The appeals court affirms the decision, allowing this multi-year case to continue in court.

Everyone agrees that websites are anti-SLAPP-protected public forums. The appeals court says Selker’s UCL claim targets Xcentric’s purported extortion, not anti-SLAPP-protected activity:

we agree with Selker that his UCL claim targets Xcentric’s unlawful or unfair business practices, not boba’s negative report, or even Xcentric’s hosting of negative consumer reports on its website. The injurious practices—and the acts for which liability is asserted—are Xcentric’s solicitation of exclusively negative reports, including by anonymous individuals, for the purpose of forcing the reports’ subjects to compensate it for services to remove or mitigate the impact of the consumer’s damaging complaints.

On that basis, the appeals court agrees that the anti-SLAPP motion doesn’t work, so the case will proceed.

Claims that Ripoff Report engages in “extortion” are decades-old, but those claims are contentious. For example, a court rejected the extortion claim in 2010 (Asia Economic Institute v. Xcentric Ventures LLC); but in 2018, a court would have entertained the extortion claim if it had been procedurally available (Albert v. Ragland).

Section 230 wasn’t relevant to this ruling. In an anti-SLAPP case, a court only reaches the merits question once it’s been determined that the lawsuit targets protected activity. Because this appeals court said the lawsuit targeted unprotected extortion, the court didn’t proceed to the substantive review of the SLAPP where Section 230 could have applied. Nevertheless, Section 230 should be in play as this case proceeds. In theory, Section 230 shouldn’t preempt extortion claims. I still think it might apply here because Ripoff Report’s purportedly exercises its extortive leverage via its editorial decisions about if and how to publish third-party content.

Case Citation: Selker v. Xcentric Ventures LLC, 2025 WL 3494701 (Cal. App. Ct. December 5, 2025)