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

Re:Congress provided a shield for this

[simong]

Congressional law doesn't apply in Australia. Or anywhere else apart from the USA. Just thought I'd remind you.

Appliances?

[macshome]

I'm sure I won't be the only one, but on first read I thought the summary was about an appliance company.

Took me a second to realize my mistake.

Thread Links

[Anonymous Coward]

Links to the threads in question:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=628356
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=479484

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

[davidmwilliams]

One of the many flaws in 2Clix is that you get an unhandled division by zero exception when reprinting payslips if a certain non-mandatory field is zero or empty. Now, surely division by zero is the most basic and fundamental example of error handling used in any programming course or book or tutorial or other. To my mind, 2Clix are receiving negative criticisms for having software which is poorly-written and unreliable in its behaviour and outputs. To then attempt to silence critics by demanding censorship of unpalatable comments is nothing short of arrogant, bullying and reprehensible. I can barely imagine 2Clix or its lawyer considered how massive and widespread the publicity would become! People worldwide now know of this tiny accounting software package - and not for good reasons. Whirlpool.net.au is a well-respected forum, frequented by many IT professionals and decision-makers. I think 2Clix will find that Simon Wright has far more credibility and supporters than they do.

Re:It happens

[Ajehals]

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.

Re:It happens

[PJ1216]

way to go. now 2clix is gonna sue slashdot.org. i hear they're planning on suing the internet too.

Re:Congress provided a shield for this

[simong]

Actually, with Australia's history of ill-considered legislation over the Internet, expect forums to be made illegal in the next six months.

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)

Australian Defamation Laws

[Hellsbells]

Australian Defamation Laws are ridiculously powerful.

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

Re:Australian Defamation Laws

[Spy der Mann]

Australian Defamation Laws are ridiculously powerful.

BUZZZZZZZZZZZT! Defamation alert! Lawsuit!

My real fear about this issue

[smegged]

I am very concerned about this lawsuit. There are two very real outcomes that could occur should whirlpool lose.

• Firstly, whirlpool are THE resource for finding out about ISPs in Australia. Their neutrality and open forums, should they be lost, would be very, very bad for consumers.
• Secondly, a ruling against whirlpool means a precedent would be set which basically ensured that forums in Australia would be practically eliminated. This is both bad for a lot of businesses and bad for users.

For these reasons I really really hope that whirlpool wins (well, for those reasons and the obvious moral reasons).

I'll take bullies for 200, Alex.

[Anne_Nonymous]

Is it true that 2clix eats puppies and kittens for breakfast?

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: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.