Benjamin J. Marrison of the Columbus Dispatch recently wrote a column advocating for anti-SLAPP legislation in Ohio:
“One of the things readers tell us they value most about The Dispatch is our commitment to watchdog, investigative reporting.
We have intelligent, savvy readers. Based on feedback over the years, it’s clear you appreciate the difficulty of watchdog journalism because you understand the time commitment it requires to dig deep into a subject and the blowback we get from those who are the subjects of our investigative efforts.
Read More
From our friends at Techdirt:
Geek gadget also-ran KlearGear gained internet infamy thanks to the following paragraph tucked away on its “Terms of Sale and Use” page:
In an effort to ensure fair and honest public feedback, and to prevent the publishing of libelous content in any form, your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts KlearGear.com, its reputation, products, services, management or employees.
Tacked onto this absurd redefining of “fair and honest feedback” was a $3,500 fee. This was levelled at a couple who complained about the non-delivery of products it had paid for. This went to court, and the couple was awarded over $300,000 in a default judgement when KlearGear no-showed.
Read More
From MEGAN GEUSS at Ars Technica:
The regulation of Google’s search results has come up from time to time over the past decade, and although the idea has gained some traction in Europe (most recently with “right to be forgotten” laws), courts and regulatory bodies in the US have generally agreed that Google’s search results are considered free speech. That consensus was upheld last Thursday, when a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Google’s right to order its search results as it sees fit.
The owner of a website called CoastNews, S. Louis Martin, argued that Google was unfairly putting CoastNews too far down in search results, while Bing and Yahoo were turning up CoastNews in the number one spot. CoastNews claimed that violated antitrust laws. It also took issue with Google’s refusal to deliver ads to its website after CoastNews posted photographs of a nudist colony in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Read More
Tim Evans, The Indianapolis Star's consumer advocate, writes about “bad reviews and lawsuits.”
Read MoreFrom Mark Gollom at CBC News:
The aggressive action taken by some businesses against those who post negative reviews online about their product or service is having a chilling effect on some reviewers who fear being sued, observers say.
“It’s a tremendous issue. We’re running into that all over. It’s cheap to threaten and expensive to defend,” said Paul Alan Levy, a lawyer who specializes in free speech issues related to the internet for the Washington, D.C.- based Public Citizen Litigation Group.
Read More
PPP Board Member Eric Goldman, Director of the High Tech Law Institute and law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, had a piece published on Forbes’ website discussing the new federal bill that was introduced in Congress to strengthen consumer free speech rights online.
Read the full article here.
Read More
Writing a product review on Amazon is usually a pretty mundane process: Pick a star rating, leave a few words, hit “submit,” and immediately forget about it. For one man, though, the process just got a whole lot more interesting (in the bad way). Eight months after a Florida man panned a product online, the company’s lawyer delivered a fresh new legal threat to his doorstep — retract the review, or face a libel suit.
Read More
An editor at the Ionia, Michigan Sentinel-Standard lost the defamation lawsuit she filed against local citizens who complained about her reporting and called her a "yellow journalist."
Read More
The Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawaii affirmed the circuit court’s decision in holding that a lawsuit did not constitute a SLAPP under the state’s anti-SLAPP law.
Read More
A miner in Kentucky was sued by his former employer after filing a discrimination suit against the mining company. The miner had raised concerns about the safety of working conditions before being fired, and claimed the mine’s lawsuit was filed “expressly to send a message” to employees who spoke up about safety problems.
Read More
A Virginia builder filed a lawsuit against a customer who left a negative Yelp review, saying the review harmed his company’s reputation. The customer’s review claimed that the company allegedly charged her for work not done, damaged her home and stole her jewelry.
Read More
A federal court dismissed a libel lawsuit filed by a North Carolina politician who claimed his 2012 presidential campaign was destroyed by a profile written by two student journalists from St. Michael’s College in Vermont. The court relied on the Vermont anti-SLAPP law in dismissing the suit, and the politician was ordered to pay $23,336 in attorney’s fees.
Read More