Article on the legality of criticizing companies on line.

Very interesting. Non-disparaging clauses would be deemed unenforceable in many countries where statutory consumer protection legislation already applies. Those that generally vent their frustrations publicly have already exhausted vendor cooperation & are desperate for an outcome. Public disparagement works, & I'm not afraid to call a spade when I need to where there is blatant misrepresentation, merchantability or fitness for purpose issues. Much quicker & cheaper than going to a tribunal or court. As a consumer, gather your facts, leverage CCTV, use your phone camera & don't get done over by the many carbolic smoke-ballers out there.

I would hate to see online public forums disappear because of participation paranoia due to growing fear of libellous litigation risk.
 
Thanks Jock, I want to be able to give an honest opinion without fear of retribution. I think that's what anyone who believes in free speech would want.
 
MDP said:
Thanks Jock, I want to be able to give an honest opinion without fear of retribution. I think that's what anyone who believes in free speech would want.
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Absolutely Mark!
It's a real sad state of affairs now. One can not give an honest experience or opinion without fear of retribution. If a company or store or what have you is doing bad things it should be brought to the attention of the consumer and if the company or store or whatever is great, that should be written about as well.
As consumers I think all of us appreciate HONEST experiences from others. I mean for example, who would want to hire a contractor to work on their house without checking them out first?
I wrote restaurant reviews for a travel site on temp contract for a short time and had this wild and rampant retribution and litigation stuff been going on, I would have been nailed for good and bad!
I believe this is all about companies and such with something to hide trying to cover their tracks or trying to use false marketing. I wrote a review on Yelp about a year ago on a great little restaurant I ate at in my area. Nothing but good and it got pulled after one day up. I found out the reason it got pulled was because Yelp wants money the owners of businesses people write about if it's praise. Also there are lots of shills posting from competitive businesses that try to put down their competition. So these days it's hard to know if your reading fact or fiction.
Needless to say, I don't read too much into reviews anymore.
 
It's complicated. I've read reviews of local restaurants that I liked and saw some horrible comments. When I looked at some of these writers other reviews they were all horrible!

Recently, in Philly, we had a high profile story where a gay couple was beaten up in what sounded like gay bashing. The group involved was shown on surveillance camera images and identified by Twitter posts. In time it became known that they had eaten at a restaurant in town and people took to Twitter, Yelp and Facebook to malign the restaurant for not coming forward! The police never contacted them.
 
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