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From Ars Technica:
Imagine you just purchased a shiny new wireless router from Amazon, only to discover that the product doesn't work as you anticipated. To vent frustration and perhaps help others avoid the same mistake, you leave a negative product review-but some of your claims ultimately turn out to be incorrect or misleading. Now the company's attorneys want to sue you for your "illegal campaign to damage, discredit, defame, and libel" it. Are you going down in flames? Or can you say what you want on the Internet? As with many areas of law, the answers are nuanced and complicated. Our primer, however, will help you avoid the obvious pitfalls.
The article contains advice from defamation lawyer Lee Berlik and free speech attorney Paul Alan Levy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by evilviper on Thursday May 15 2014, @07:57AM
Consider yourself lucky... In the US, being factually truthful is an iron-clad defence against libel/defamation charges. In much of Europe, it's not, and you can be held responsible for what you write having a negative impact on the company.
The US' freedom of speech rules, which explicitly allow you to lie to your heart's content, combined with libel laws which hold you liable if you aren't being truthful, has a very odd effect... Negative product reviews can be trusted, while positive product reviews can be, and often are, fabricated accounts paid for by the manufacturer. They can lie about how great their product is all they want, but their competitors can't post falsely negative reviews of the product without trouble.
I know I've purchased products, only to go back and find EVERY 1-star review about the product on Amazon was exactly what I experienced. I can point to 32GB SDHC cards that are obviously too-cheap to be real, but the couple 1-star reviews reporting it have been down-voted and buried by fake 5-star reviews from accounts that never reviewed any other product.
ALWAYS read the top-rated negative reviews of a product! I particularly prefer when a negative review has clear numbers to back-up the claims, and suggest a different product as an improved alternative.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by elf on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:21AM
The main difference between the US and UK used to be that you don't need to prove malice to prove to have been libel. In the UK things have change in the last year
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/conten ts/enacted>
The type of defence you can used is clearly explained.
The comments in ARS were actually quite interesting, what I said above was posted there.
(Score: 1) by E_NOENT on Thursday May 15 2014, @01:38PM
This is good advice. For me, I try to verify my assumption that anything I buy online (sight unseen) is going to be a worthless piece of junk until proven otherwise. I also count on the fact that reviews are often "gamed" by manufacturers and other paid shills.
Negative reviews can be hokum as well (placed by competitors) but if you're at all familiar with type of product you're buying, you can spot the bogus false reviews and omit them from consideration.
What's left (in the one-star ratings) are actual beefs that people have had with the product, which provide a pretty reliable guide toward whether or not it's worth your time. If I can't prove that the product is in fact a steaming pile, I'll begrudgingly purchase the item.
Yeah, I *am* a lot of fun at parties, why do you ask?
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 15 2014, @02:19PM
Except for the part where most people who leave 1-star reviews are morons.
"produce wuz rong color. ZERO STARS WOUD NOT BUY AGAIN"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Funny) by rcamera on Thursday May 15 2014, @02:40PM
/* no comment */
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:00PM
Yeah I've seen a few for cables that say the cables are too short (but the lengths of the cables were in their description).
That said I hope whatever laws are introduced don't prevent the entertaining joke reviews.
e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Discon tinued-Manufacturer/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM [amazon.com]l on-Titanium-Chronograph/dp/B001K3IXW8/ [amazon.com]5 0201 [amazon.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Zenith-96-0529-4035-Tourbil
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=10012
(Score: 1) by E_NOENT on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:10PM
Who would want to buy a short cable? That's my point, don't you see?
That's EXACTLY the kind of information I NEED!
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Friday May 16 2014, @05:44AM
I've found the opposite, the overwhelming majority of the time. See the reviews at the following links for incontrovertible proof:
http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-Bears-Sugar-Fre e/dp/B000EVQWKC [amazon.com]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Veet-Men-Hair-Removal-Crem e/dp/B000KKNQBK [amazon.co.uk]
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.