Network Associates Loses Battle to Silence Reviewers

ajkessel writes "This article from today's New York Times covers a court ruling against Network Associates in a suit brought by the New York State Attorney General to invalidate Network Associate's shrink-wrap clause which states: 'The customer will not publish reviews of this product without prior consent from Network Associates Inc.' Network Associates has vowed to appeal." Reader SlashDotIDOne points to a CNET story which says "Network Associates could be forced to pay $0.50 for every license which included this draconian requirement: 'The customer will not publish reviews of this product without prior consent from Network Associates Inc.'"

Comments

Good

[wan23]

Why do so many corporations think they can ignore laws they don't like (i.e. the first amendment) and make up new ones arbitratily (well.. I suppose that happens all the time, doesn't it?)

Re:Good

[mickwd]

Because management training schemes teach managers that "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission". They're taught to try it on and to see what they can get away with.

Too many people here think there's just something "evil" about big corporations in general. They're not evil as such. The reason they act as they do is all about making money. They'll try and get away with whatever they can to make money until they're told they can't (the same way certain dictators will try things on until threatened with force).

But then money, as they say, is the root of all evil.

License is good warning

[moz25]

If you may only use a product on the basis of not sharing your experiences, then I'd see that as a WARNING that the product probably sucks and doesn't hold up in comparisons without optimal boundary conditions.

It signals a BIG lack of confidence from side of the manufacturer if it believes the quality of its product won't shine through reviews naturally. Sure, there'll be a few bad/dishonest reviews, but the majority of (semi-)reliable ones should be positive. That is... if the manufacturer agrees that its product is indeed excellent. In this case, apparently not ;-)

This case is good news.. I hope it sets a precedent.

Regards,

Moz.

If I'm right

[carlmenezes]

Hasn't Microsoft used a similar clause in their .NET license agreement? Can that be challenged too?

Re:What Does This Mean for Benchmarks?

[Fnkmaster]

Oh, I certainly agree with you from a moral and legal perspective that an EULA is meaningless since there are no characteristics of a contract at all.

Rather, the argument that Spitzer used seemed to be that because the contract was included in the box of a mass market software product and had terms that were anathema to the public interest, those terms should be thrown out (i.e. as in with a contract of adherence). He did not seem to make the argument that the EULA wasn't a contract at all and thus was invalid on the face of it (though I agree with you that it should be, and that some decisions have supported our view on this). Rather, this just reinforces that terms odious to the public interest should be thrown out from EULAs, and thus presumably that they are being interpreted as contracts of adherence, at least by this argument in this court.

Re:Stifling Speech

[jgalun]

His state office is doing more then federal offices like SEC and even aspects of DOJ. But what has ge gotten in return?

I know this isn't really where you were going, but Spitzer has become extremely well-known and well-respected as a result of his actions against Wall Street and corporations. His plan is to run for New York Governor some day, and this popularity has a real good chance to make that a reality. Because Spitzer has done something very wise, politically-speaking. By going against lying investment banks and NA for preventing reviews, he is aligning himself not against business, but against the excesses of business that hurt the average person.

Spitzer will get the anti-business, far-left votes when he runs for governor, no matter what, because the choice comes down to Democratic Spitzer versus a Republican. But in being for saving capitalism (and protecting the average investor/user) through regulation, rather than attacking capitalism through government fiat, Spitzer can pick up votes from the broad middle that believes in capitalism and a corporate economy, but also believes that corporations sometimes do illegal things that must be prevented.

Having said that Spitzer's line of attack is very wise politically, I don't actually believe that he has made his decision on how to confront corporations based on self-interested political motives. The fact is that Spitzer almost became a corporate lawyer himself. He does not hate corporations, and he does not want to destroy Merrill Lynch. He just wants to make sure they don't lie to investors.

It's like FDR during the New Deal. There were people on the far left who wanted socialism in the US. But FDR believed that it was best to keep capitalism, but to fix its most egregious flaws.

And I think it's silly to write off Spitzer as a potential Supreme Court Justice, some day. If a Democratic president nominated him, it would be very hard for Republicans in Congress to oppose him. Because while Republicans might not love Spitzer, that doesn't give them enough to oppose him. Sure, Larry Kudlow and Forbes magazine would support spiking his nomination, but it would definitely be a losing issue for the Republicans to make, because there are too many swing and Republican voters who would say, "Hey wait, I own stock, I'm glad Spitzer stopped these bastards from lying to me!"

Supreme Court nominations get a huge amount of publicity. It's way too risky for the Republicans, already perceived as the party of the rich, to spike a guy because he protected stock market investors (who now make up a majority of the population) against lying corporations.