Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Those who have closely followed the unfolding of NSI since their early days are no doubt unsurprised by this story. Those, like John Gilmore, having tracked the development o f NSI back to SAIC and DARPA are likely to have an ever-increasing "See, I told you so" conspiracy-theorist standpoint. NSI, in many ways, is the Microsoft of the DNS world. NSI wishes to offer services in exchange for money, yet at the same time, wants to also maintain control of those who are their customers.
It is seemingly paradoxical how companies selling technology offer their products as enabling of opportunity and yet, ultimately want to use that opportunity to create further dependency upon themselves. Slashdot itself, at some point will seek refuge in its popularity and economic viability, thus corrupting its own indealism by way of regulating and moderating its "free" speech claims.
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