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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.
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...
> 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)
"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."
Because:
a) you are allowed to be impersonated as a business under the understandment that you'll abide to the laws of the land.
b) business are ultimately allow to do their stuff for as long as it fits the common benefit.
c) the legislator understands there's a strong assymetry of power between the business and the individual and so chooses to protect the individual under the light of a) and b) above.
"Nobody is forced to do business with me, and they entered knowingly (presumably) into the agreement."
By making your contract a single non-negotiable entity, you are open to a) the contract to be understood in the most favourable way for the party that didn't have a saying on its redaction and b) for parts of it to be nevertheless considered void and null without this meaning, on its sole support, for the rest of the contract the rest of the contract not being enforceable.
Too bad the Democrats put the nuclear option into the rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It has to suck to be them. Particularly one of the 52 D senators that voted to change the rule. We should send them all nice 'thank you' notes, perhaps with a pacifier.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
True, it did take time for the bill of rights to be considered applicable to the various states as well. For all the people out there who go on and on about how the US is the greatest country ever and that the constitution was divinely inspired are overlooking all the major flaws in the constitution.
Your rights aren't guaranteed, meaning they can be abridged or ignored by the government and there's nothing you can really do about it as an individual. You have to rise up as a group to prevent this erosion, by voting for people who uphold rights, to protest when violations occur, and to push back when needed. Instead the population is more passive now, we've been told that we should be scared of terrorists so we've become willing to lose our rights and freedoms as long as the government promises to get rid of the bogeymen. After all, everyone is a big fan of rights for him or herself but it's rarer to be a fan of rights for people you don't like.
The bill of rights are something of an anomaly, because the American colonies were not supporters of rights for individuals. The rights snuck their way in because the people who approved them for the most part thought that they wouldn't apply to other people, like slaves, or women, or foreigners, or other political parties, etc. Even the founding fathers and the earliest congresses were busy violating rights when they could.