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Software Company Sues Popular Australian Forum
Pugzly writes "In a recent announcement on the Whirlpool front page, it appears that accounting software maker 2clix is suing the founder of the forums as the founder "allowed statements 'relating to the Plaintiff and its software product that are both false and malicious' to be published on the Whirlpool forums."
Actually, with Australia's history of ill-considered legislation over the Internet, expect forums to be made illegal in the next six months.
The comment as you have described it seems perfectly fair (it is someone's opinion of someone else..) and potentially quite useful to other users of the forum, especially if others add their views. I would be doubtful that it is illegal in almost any (sane) country to express a negative opinion of something. I haven't read the thread so I don't know what comments were made in this case, but in the case you describe I would be more inclined to put the company complaining and the complainant in contact and have them sort the issue out between them, any company that tries to fight negative opinions (however they are formed) about themselves with legal action, is not going to gain any confidence from its potential customers.
Clearly it would be different if someone is claiming something as a fact but is in fact lying i.e. "CarMaker A is EVIL, they skin kittens to make their upholstery!! - Don't buy from them", but an opinion i.e. "I don't like CarMaker A" or "CarMaker A's Cars are not as nice as CarMaker B's" or even "CarMakerA is crap", is always valid (if it is an honest one, and its not really practicable to distinguish an honest opinion from a dishonest one).
The real problem comes when companies can have negative opinions removed from sites under threat of legal action (whether it has merit or not). It gives corporations far too much control over what the public can and do see or read about them. Of course for a small website owner, a hobbyist or simply an enthusiast of some sort, the threat of legal action is almost always poses too much of a risk and the reaction to remove offending material is clearly understandable.
What is needed is a mechanism whereby any person or organisation who receives a legal threat is able to evaluate its merit, and if it is totally worthless and/or malicious, to take action against the originator.