Slashdot Mirror
California Bill Would Safeguard Consumers' Rights To Criticize Firms Online
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a California bill that aims to protect online reviewers’ rights."The proposed law appears to take aim at online licensing agreements that consumers often enter into with companies when they click through the many boilerplate terms and conditions of various online services. Buried deep in the small print of a number of these contacts are provisions stating that consumers agree not to write negative reviews about the service provider. 'If merchants think that our First Amendment free speech rights need to be curtailed, they should say so upfront and in plain language,' Pérez explained of the impetus for his bill, as reported by the Times."
It's even worse than that. The article gives the example of a company, KlearGear, trying to charge a couple because they left a negative review of the company. The wrinkle in this case: The negative review was posted three years before the lawsuit and before the "you can't criticize us online" text entered into the EULA. So the companies don't just want you to agree to whatever is in their EULA, they think you accepting the EULA means you also accept any future version of the EULA no matter what restrictions get added on.
In the case of the couple, the charge was sent to a collections agency which hurt the couple's credit rating. They, in turn, sued KlearGear to have the debt declared null and void. When KlearGear didn't show up to challenge the suit, the judge ruled in favor of the couple. What would have happened had KlearGear had a better legal team, though? Even if they didn't win, they could have easily tied the couple up in court for months or years, forcing them to bankruptcy with legal fees, until the company settled out of court with the couple. (Perhaps dropping the original fee in exchange for no precedent being set against the company and maybe even some token amount that wouldn't even cover the couples' legal costs.)
I agree that agreements can over-ride constitutional rights in some cases. For example, if I sign an NDA, I'm restricting my freedom of speech in a certain regard. However, these agreements should only be done on when something needs to be kept under wraps (details of a new product shown to reviewers early, for example), not as a matter-of-normal-business instituted when anyone has even the slightest business association with the company.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
lol.. It's not quite that simple. The 13th amendment makes slavery and/or involuntary servitude illegal in the US and jurisdictions the US controls and grants congress the power to enforce it. Theoretically, you can sign yourself away as a slave in a foreign land- if it wasn't for the US government maintaining a claim of jurisdiction over US citizens wherever they go. (granted this jurisdictions is somewhat limited)
On the other hand, the first amendment says congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
In this case, it is pretty clear what the intent was. Congress is not to make any laws. It doesn't say that you cannot contract your speech rights away with a third party or that the loss of free speech in any way is prohibited.
Now I know I left the religious freedoms portion off and I did that because it gets ignored quite a bit under the guise of separation of church and state which is no where in the first amendment.