The TEFL Blacklist, set up by Sandy of TeflTrade, has been taken over by someone known as Inspector McHammered of the Lard, who has re-invigorated the site.
There are a number of sites that blacklist schools, though many of these are subject to pressures from advertising. There are so many complaints about posts being deleted from sites like Dave's EslCafe.com that complain about schools, where the interests of the owners lie 100% with advertisers and without any attempt to guarantee basic standards of decency over the employment conditions. In other places, a similar approach is taken, so that posts have been pulled after they paid for advertising. Where sites don't make this explicit, than I think there are grounds for complaint as they are presenting adverts without any quality control, though if they state that there's no control, then the user is free to judge their value.
There are a number of sites like the TeflBlacklist that have been operating for years and have not been closed down, which suggests that the generous protection the law affords to the owners of businesses still does not cover some of the horrors of ESL/EFL schools. While some accounts may be exaggerated, biased or false, and those that are can be corrected or deleted, the blacklists do the profession a favour by exposing some of the crooks and cowboys who are out there, and ESL/EFL is a profession where there are a frightening number of places that are shoddy or just plain crooked.
Actually you are wrong. This guy is going to get sued over defamation of character..
I am afraid that I will have to wait until the writ arrives before I am convinced- people who threaten to sue rarely do. I am not sure which of them you are referring to to, but they have both been threatened with writs. Rather than defamation of character, which is the one that is frequently threatened in comments but never really gets off the ground, I would worry more about the reaction from one of the bigger schools with the resources, sharp lawyers and a lot to lose, but even then, many of the schools they write about have a lot they wouldn't wish to be aired in a courtroom. Also there's a lot of very expensive distance between suing someone and actually winning. Most people in teaching would be bankrupt before they'd finalised the decision on which national law to choose for the case. They if effect have the same protection that bosses of dodgy schools have enjoyed for years- it's not easy to sue someone in ESL no matter how wronged you are or feel you are.
What HAS happened to the dear Inspector? Has he done a bunk, or been "disposed of"?