It's now illegal for businesses in the US to punish customers for negative feedback

[PocketNerd]

The fact that this law needs to be a thing is one of the many reasons that the US as a Country is sad, so sad.

[Albatross]

I totally misread the title and was about to have a party. Well, either way this is good. though if I got charged more for something I wouldn't just sit there. I'd be making a phone call. 

[Trik'Stari]

I'd like to take a moment, and address the comments (possibly being made here, I haven't read everything you all have said yet) being made on the Arstechnica comment section.

 

Particularly, about Trump.

 

Trump is a populist. Nothing more. He saw that the American people are not happy with the Democrats and the way they run things (namely, if you disagree you are vilified, degraded, blatant anti-white racism and policies, etc..) and capitalized on that.

 

The upcoming republican congress, will be in the same mentality. Knowing that if they piss people off, they will likely lose big in 2 years when we vote again. And believe me, they want to hold onto their new-found power.

 

USE. THIS. TO. YOUR. ADVANTAGE.

 

Write your "representative" and get EVERYONE YOU CAN to do the same. Demand that they support this (or continue to) and DEMAND that they support net neutrality. If we want to get shit done, we MUST have make them realize how many people are paying attention to the sneaky shit they are doing that the general public does not understand and for whatever reason cannot be bothered to understand. WE NEED TO FLOOD THEM, give them a clear reason to do the right thing, something that would "threaten" them in the next election.

 

We did it once, when the bastards tried to pass the "internet freedom act" (which was the exact opposite of what the title sounds like) and it worked. That bill was "bi-partisan" and it failed miserably because of the overwhelming public resistance to it. (despite all the bribes [donations] given out to democrats and republicans alike, who supported it. by major ISP's like Comcast and Verizon)

 

We can do this again, if you can convince just a few people you know, to take a couple minutes out of their day to write a fucking email. That's ALL it will take.

 

Thank you for reading.

[AlTech]

So long as all the claims which are negative are all true in somebody's review then sure why not.

 

If they're complaining just to be a annoying and the complaints aren't valid then they shouldn't be allowed future access to products by the company.

[AresKrieger]

4 hours ago, Bensemus said:

You sign into and NDA though. This new law protects people from retribution for writing negative reviews. 

You'd have to agree in a contract for this as well, simply stating an opinion is free speech unless under contract not to which is the case this law covers, ie consumers don't have to follow contract stipulations that ban review

[KuJoe]

At least I can still "fire" clients.

[dalekphalm]

10 hours ago, Atmos said:

I wasnt even aware this was a thing in the US >.>

 

My Question though, what will this do to non Disclosure agreements about products, and those that break them? Are they exempt for a period of time from this law, or do companies just have to trust that these people won't spill the beans, or if they do just blacklist them from future releases.

I'm assuming in this scenario you mean a person is purview to pre-release info, signed an NDA, then broke it and wrote a bad review?

 

The bad review itself would be protected (if the points were legitimate, as agreed by in a court of law), but the fact that they broke an NDA would be a totally different issue. They could still face harsh legal consequences for breaking the NDA, even if they are allowed to keep their negative review posted.

10 hours ago, theninja35 said:

Right, but what if they purchased something and then complained about Customer Support even if the Support did literally everything they could?

That would not be very difficult to prove actually. The company simply pulls the call records (Since pretty much any call centre records all their calls), and uses that as evidence in the court of law. Ultimately, it would be up to the court to decide if such action was justified or not.

[Atmos]

19 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm assuming in this scenario you mean a person is purview to pre-release info, signed an NDA, then broke it and wrote a bad review?

 

The bad review itself would be protected (if the points were legitimate, as agreed by in a court of law), but the fact that they broke an NDA would be a totally different issue. They could still face harsh legal consequences for breaking the NDA, even if they are allowed to keep their negative review posted.

 

But this is the bit I'm caught up on.

Quote

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.

Wouldn't that make it illegal to persecute anyone for breaking an NDA?

I hope theres a far more precise wording of what they mean, because if that's the literal wording then the law is fucked.

 

[Magnetorheological]

...And here I thought this was supposed to be covered in our first amendment rights.

[Doobeedoo]

Was legal until now so wow

[VerticalDiscussions]

They could punish costumers for negative feedback in the US?

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

Like with all laws, this will be a massive double-edged sword. You can only solve these kinds of problems temporarily at best.

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 hours ago, Magnetorheological said:

...And here I thought this was supposed to be covered in our first amendment rights.

Businesses don't have to follow the first amendment. The first amendment applies to the government only.

 

3 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

Was legal until now so wow

If it isn't illegal to do so, it's legal to do so. That's how most country's law works.

[WkdPaul]

3 hours ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

They could punish costumers for negative feedback in the US?

yes, they can also in Canada (unless that changed in the last year)

 

a quick search on Google news;

 

http://www.cbs5az.com/story/21201698/company-sues-az-woman-over-negative-online-review

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/law-firm-sues-20-year-old-waitress-over-unflattering-yelp-facebook-reviews-8606161

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/09/valve-bans-developer-steam-lawsuit-customers-bad-reviews/

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/05/04/yelp-review-could-cost-couple-1-million/

[VerticalDiscussions]

37 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

-snip-

Wow thats terrible. Hopefully this serves right to fix these issues, which i believe cant happen in Europe (never searched for that fact tough).

[WkdPaul]

25 minutes ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

Wow thats terrible. Hopefully this serves right to fix these issues, which i believe cant happen in Europe (never searched for that fact tough).

Yeah, don't know about Europe (couldn't find much) but here, I know some provinces in Canada passed bills to prevent that, I would still prefer if the federal gov did something about it though.

 

There was one case in Ontario where the lady that was sued won, but that took a while and was expensive ($20 000);

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/dog-owner-wins-legal-battle-to-keep-bad-review-of-kennel-online-1.2420908

[Scitesh]

20 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The person can prove they were actually a patron there at some point.

 

Like if I said "Dell sucks" but never purchased anything from them, let alone used any of their products (which of course is tougher to prove), I have almost no case.

Alienware  sucks  and yes I paid for one of their laptops

[VerticalDiscussions]

12 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

-snip-

God, thats awful and she didnt even got any money from that terrible kennel company.

 

Grr, seriously they beat up a dog and made him vomit blood? I say that they should be deported to Mexican prisons asap, the entire company :p.

 

Hopefully cases like this wont happen in the future, or if they do, the reviewers win all the time, as long as its true.

[Scitesh]

First of all WHY THE HELL WAS IT EVEN LEGAL??

 at least one thing that India for right on the first attempt(okay not first)  was consumer  protection and satisfaction act

 

I.e  brands and stores can't pressure you for a  good review/word of mouth

And can't punish you for lack there of 

It was bloody common sense and consumer forum acknowledged  it..

 

Over here people were pursued to giving 5 star reviews on uber and what did govt of Maharashtra does  banda uber  than uber  promises it would censor such behaviour  and apologised to gets it licence back  and this shit  went down on one day  no media mess no nothing just plain logic

[Thunderpup]

I wonder how they will conflict with laws regarding slander and libel.

 

The crux of something being slanderous or libel is they have to be untrue, and also have a negative impact on those being slandered/libeled.  

 

This law seems like it would give a free pass to trolls who wish to trash a company they've never had any dealings with just out of spite.  This already occurs and i can only see it getting worse. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, Thunderpup said:

This law seems like it would give a free pass to trolls who wish to trash a company they've never had any dealings with just out of spite.  This already occurs and i can only see it getting worse. 

Which is slander, and the company is free to press charges if they really want to.

 

But you know, part of me wants to believe people actually look at why a place is getting a bad rap and see that it's trolls trying too hard.

[BroliviaWilde]

seems to me that shenanigans like what digital homicide pulled will be less frequent.

[Prysin]

On 29/11/2016 at 9:09 PM, M.Yurizaki said:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/congress-passes-law-protecting-right-to-post-negative-online-reviews/

 

It'll probably go into effect starting next year, but you'll be able to post negative reviews (legitimate ones of course, slander is another case) without fear of the business trying to "punish" you like threatening legal action or charging extra on your card.

The amazing thing I found in this though is it was a unanimous vote. In spite of the US's political broken base. There may be hope yet.

wait, they could legally charge you money for disagreeing with them?

Wouldnt that be considered fraud or theft??

[Arty]

On 11/29/2016 at 3:14 PM, theninja35 said:

Right, but what if they purchased something and then complained about Customer Support even if the Support did literally everything they could?

theirs a reason they record and keep records of chat logs and phone calls.

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 minutes ago, Prysin said:

wait, they could legally charge you money for disagreeing with them?

Wouldnt that be considered fraud or theft??

There was nothing that said you couldn't do it. And they could handwave it as "you entered an agreement to a gag order when you use our services" or some BS shrinkwrap-like clause like that.

 

That's how laws work. If there's nothing that says you can't do it, you can do it.