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."

Comments

It happens

[clickclickdrone]

I had someone make derogotory comments about some training firm on one of my sites and said firm emailed to ask we pulled the comment otherwise they might need to get legal on us. We pulled it. The firm were fairly reasonable about the whole thing given it took a week or so (ahem, the admin for the forum section had forgotton his pw).
There was no real reason not to comply - it was a silly comment with nothing to back it up, from memory 'anyone know a good IT trainer? I tried xxx but they were crap and tried to fleece me out of more money'.
Wouldn't have minded but when I looked it up, it had been there 3 years.

Re:It happens

[funkdancer]

Man, you nearly made my LCD screens become soaked with coffee. That was too funny. :D

Fwiw I'm one of the many who chipped in a small sum. Just the cost of one lunch, but given the numbers of users, if a few get in on it it will quickly become enough to provide the support that we require.

I believe this case is very important to the Australian online community. Therefore we are taking it quite seriously, as we should.

Now to something completely different; is anyone taking bets on how long 2Clix will stay in business after this? They really must have had just about zero connection with reality when they went up against Whirlpool and thus in effect pretty much the "educated masses" of the Australian online community.

Now I Will Remember 2clix

[GaryPatterson]

I'd never heard of them before, but now I have. I now know that they're overly sensitive to criticism and resort to litigation as a way of resolving complaints.

I'll be certain to avoid them in future and recommend against such a dangerous company if ever I get the chance.

Thanks 2clix, you've revealed your true colours.

(I'm an Australian, living in Melbourne)

You couldnt Pick a Worse Crowd to pick on

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. software developers.. just a word of advice... most people on whirlpool, are IT managers and admins... we are all just about to say NEVER to any 2clix software.

Re:You couldnt Pick a Worse Crowd to pick on

[deniable]

... or company decision makers who've asked us about ISPs for home. I've sent at least two MDs and one financial controller there for information.

A couple of facts about this situation

[Anonymous Coward]

The thread/s in question cited by the lawsuit are actually something like #2 and #3 for a google search of 2clix - under their official site.

So just to clarify, every time a potential customer searches for this company, they find a very easily accessible thread indicating user dissatisfaction.

I think most of us can agree that this type of thing will absolutely ruin a software company.

Not saying that they don't perhaps deserve repercussions but one can see how this has escalated when such a clearly damaging thread exists so easily discovered by sales targets.

I post this because a lot of people are getting on the bandwagon about how evil these guys are when infact this is probably the end of their business. Its a regretful situation for all and I'm glad that Simon is protecting free speech on his board but I can't help but be sorry for those people.

Maybe they deserve it.. who knows.

Re:Congress provided a shield for this

[Nazlfrag]

Except, of course, where an Australian judge deems it fit. Extradition's a bitch.

Re:Australian Defamation Laws-USA still has issues

[Christoph]

Australian Defamation Laws are ridiculously powerful.

A failed restaurant recently successfully sued a major newspaper for a negative review in the Australian High Court.

I'm defending myself (and my website) at trial in federal court in two months (November, 2007) against "deceptive trade practices" and "interference with prospective contractual relations" (a defamation claim was dropped).

My webpage criticizes a corporation that published my stock photos without permission and refused to pay the licensing fee. The federal court ruled last month that they were, in fact, guilty of infringement. Yet the court is still allowing their claims against my webpage to proceed, apparently based on comments posted by other victims of the same corporation (which, under the Section 230 of the CDA, I'm not liable for anyway)

Next month is the TWO YEAR anniversary of the claims against me. Nothing on my webpage is specifically cited as factually untrue, no evidence the webpage is false has been produced, yet we are still going to trial -- ?!?. Although I expect to prevail, I'm not sure this is hugely better than the Australian case (which I read about previously and is pretty bad). I'm pro-se, doing this on my own (my webpage with a chronology). If I had a lawyer, my costs might be over $100,000 by now.

I've posted about my case here even though it could lead to MORE claims against me as I truly in my heart believe in freedom of speech, and I won't concede to a "chilling effect" because of baseless, SLAPP lawsuits.

This is what probably caused the action...

[Col Bat Guano]

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=628356&r=12820406#r12820406

The forum thread had been running for many months, but in late August there was some real action starting to occur on getting information for legal action against 2clix.

My guess is that they would like to shut the thread down and prevent more people from getting involved in suing them.