Slashdot Mirror
It Will Soon Be Illegal To Punish Customers Who Criticize Businesses Online (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Congress has passed a law protecting the right of U.S. consumers to post negative online reviews without fear of retaliation from companies. The bipartisan Consumer Review Fairness Act was passed by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate yesterday, a Senate Commerce Committee announcement said. The bill, introduced in 2014, was already approved by the House of Representatives and now awaits President Obama's signature. The Consumer Review Fairness Act -- full text available here -- voids any provision in a form contract that prohibits or restricts customers from posting reviews about the goods, services, or conduct of the company providing the product or service. It also voids provisions that impose penalties or fees on customers for posting online reviews as well as those that require customers to give up the intellectual property rights related to such reviews. The legislation empowers the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the new law and impose penalties when necessary. The bill also protects reviews that aren't available via the Internet.
..of course, it won't extend to protecting citizens who criticize the government (watch lists, nofly lists, harassment).
Because I think those provisions stand in the way of warning others of a crappy company.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Now here is my review of Slashdot.org:
A+++. Would read again
Congress has passed a law protecting the right of U.S. consumers to post negative online reviews without fear of retaliation from companies
Congress managed to agree about something? Will wonders ever cease?
Because then you're not a patriot and should have your citizenship stripped, according to the nutbar-elect.
What is there to criticize? He just named a former Goldman Sachs guy the next Treasury Secretary. Truly a man of the common people. He is gonna bring all your jobs back I am sure...
I swaer God there's an ISIS marketing office here in Brazil.
This might be the last time I get to say how far this site has fallen since the good days. All the new editors suck and they think every other article should be about Trump.
Also, stop using CowboyNeal in your polls, stop trying to leech off the past. He isn't here anymore and you're dragging his corpse around like Weekend at Bernie's. It's disgusting.
Doesn't Oracle have some clause about not being able to post benchmarks of their database? Would this apply here since its arguably a review?
As someone who's wife was sued for over $50 million after she posted reviews of the companies service, I can get behind this.
I think it's probably a good thing too, but will it stand the test of judicial review?
If I am a business and I want to put a non-disparagement clause or review gag order into my contracts, I don't see why I can't. Nobody is forced to do business with me, and they entered knowingly (presumably) into the agreement.
yeah, sure....post away....anything, really. we'd like to see what you have to say.
to say "OMG The best movie I've seen this year!" etc. without disclosing you're being paid to post?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
> If I am a business and I want to put a non-disparagement clause or review gag order into my contracts, I don't see why I can't.
There is one reason you can't - it's illegal, under this law.
The Constitution vests the power to make law in the Congress. The courts don't have any right or power to strike down laws based on "I don't like it".
First, you'd have to make a case that you have a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to have and enforce such a clause. Is that in the 43rd amendment, because I don't see it. Secondly, you'd have to show that your (non-existent) Constitutional right to punish customers outweighs the legitimate interests of this law (freedom of speech doesn't mean you can yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theatern)
Yeah, Steven Mnuchin is a Goldman Sachs alum as well as a Soros Fund Management LLC investment professional. It's almost like the Venal Vagina had been elected and not the Populist Prick!
Dear Leader, you are my ONLY hope!
I am thy tool; thy Will be done!
I really tried to enjoy the meal at the Taj Mahal as a whole but the meat tasted like ASS. The service wasn't so great either but this was expected with the ongoing strike and picketers outside. To be honest the picketing and ruckus outside helped take my mind off the Trump Steak tasting like ASS. Will not eat here again! 1 out of 5 stars. (would have been zero stars if it was an option)
Just curious, is Slashdot now owned by Ars Technica? I already read Ars, so coming to slashdot is getting redundant with all the Ars Technical articles to which they point...
Reading between the lines, defamation law still applies. It is only extra clauses in the sales contract banning/punishing bad reviews which are now not allowed.
If I write that I bought a new Rolls Royce, but when it arrived it was made of cardboard, and when I sat in it it collapsed and then caught fire, I can still be sued for libel, and if RR can show I was lying, I'll lose. Conversely if RR habitually sues people who post honest opinions which criticize them, then they're open to a SLAPP countersuit. This looks like a good balance to me.
Note, I am not a lawyer, and have no information beyond reading TFA. Corrections and elaborations from actual lawyers are welcome.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Next step: void binding arbitration clauses.
Sorry, no mod points for you today, Mr. A.C.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
or the supporters of the current POTUS for that matter....
Everyone hurry up and punish your customers right now before it's too late!!!
Only until January 20. After that companies will be permitted to waterboard vocally unhappy customers.
I'm sick and tired of these hip, "ironic" sigs. This is an actual, honest-to-goodness no-nonsense sig!
The 10th amendment is sure the first thing to look at with any federal legislation, I'm with you there. Well actually you look at Article I, Section 8, which lists what the federal government is allowed to do.
In this case, the title of the bill is:
To prohibit the use of certain clauses in form contracts that restrict the ability of a consumer to communicate regarding the goods or services offered in INTERSTATE COMMERCE that were the subject of the contract, and for other purposes.
Article I, Section 8 does of course grant the Congress power to regulate interstate commerce. The funny thing is, though Congress wrote "interstate commerce" in the *title* of the bill, they seem to have forgotten to put it anywhere else in the bill. We could assume any competent court would apply this only in interstate commerce cases - not only does the title of the bill state the intent of Congress, but as you mentioned they have no standing to regulate INTRAstate commerce.
Will that void hold in a arbitration court? or can that be used to fight it out in a real court? Used if they try to go to debt collection to get the back any fine, penalties, forced arbitration fees?
"Congress has passed a law protecting the right of U.S. consumers to post negative online reviews without fear of retaliation from companies."
Never fear, Citizen! Mein Fuhrer Trump will soon overturn this anti-corporate, abusive law!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Why are audio ads being forced on me when reading comments? This just makes me close the tab and not come back to the site.
What is the penalty for fake reviews? Defamation? Great the government is wanting a fair online review world, but the penalty for a fake review is nil the attacks will be very asymmetric. And a business can't really afford the lawyer needed for the years to sue some pissant who makes a poverty wage.
In the case of federal legislation, the only "legality" for a court to review is whether Congress has the Constitutional authority to make the law. The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. There's no Constitutional question here, nothing for the court to decide.
Article I, Section 8 does of course grant the Congress power to regulate interstate commerce. The funny thing is, though Congress wrote "interstate commerce" in the *title* of the bill, they seem to have forgotten to put it anywhere else in the bill. We could assume any competent court would apply this only in interstate commerce cases - not only does the title of the bill state the intent of Congress, but as you mentioned they have no standing to regulate INTRAstate commerce.
Good luck finding a test case. You'd want to avoid any internet posted reviews. That would bring it into the federal domain.
Of course, even f you do, the natural defense is to assert unconsciability, which the feds just gave a strongly supportive argument, as an expression of civil rights. Then you check for treaties. Lots of them cover trade and contracts.
I wrote my first consumer product review not too long ago. Just told the truth as it happened and gave a one-star review. It got rejected for not conforming to guidelines. I have no idea why other than poor review. I ordered 6 units of a product. Two boxes showed up. One box had 1 unit. The other had zero. Worthy of a one-star no?
Like you can't buy a copy of Oracle without signing a license that says you won't publish any benchmarks. So there's theoretically no public speed comparison between Oracle and PostgreSQL anywhere. Will the new law fix that?
Will this make those illegal too? Sure hope so. DB, compiler vendors etc. should never have been able to gag benchmark comparisons.
You seem to think that laws magically enforce themselves.
Well I guess accepting money to say what Goldman Sachs people want to hear is way worse than saying what deplorables want to hear and then picking a Goldman Sachs for a position of power.
Yup America is going to be great.
/publicly criticizes article
Can businesses now lock up people or garnish their wages, put a lien on their home?
What is the catch? What is it?
Congress does *NOT* do something like this without completely screwing us in some fashion.
What else did they slip in there?
If this is a display of your command of English, I would review a review of yours too.
How often have companies actually implemented this clause and come out well from it? The result of punishing someone for a bad review is a billion people with no link to the company posting bad reviews.
Long overdue.
someone posts a negative review of anything with "Trump" plastered on it. Then it will not just be illegal to post negative reviews, you will probably end up on the wrong end of a board with your head covered in a wet rag.
What's left of it.
ah, it's about the U.S, not the rest of the world...
* I kind of understand better the anonymity problem in the U.S. now!
but as you mentioned they have no standing to regulate INTRAstate commerce
How I wish that were true. Unfortunately the courts have long held the belief that the interstate commerce clause means that the federal government can not only regulate interstate commerce but also things that have an effect on interstate commerce. Because of this the feds can regulate all commerce such as raising food for my own consumption on my own land that never enters the commercial market.
Time to offend someone
The weird thing is the Republicans are in favor of this.
It seems you live in the Third World of the USA. He, he.
but the way this article talks it sounds like good things...*re-reads headline* oh its not about being legal to punch people for bad reviews. that makes more sense.
No. If the product was bad then that'd be worthy of a 1-star product review, but if you bought 6 of something and only one showed up, that doesn't justify a 1-star review of the product. It would justify a 1-star review of the seller if they don't fix it, but the seller and the product are different things.
(I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with rejecting the review though, because product reviews are sometimes the only way to give feedback about a specific seller.)