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

[dalekphalm]

16 hours ago, Atmos said:

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

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.

 

I think you're getting hung up on that one part of the sentence, but without the rest of the sentence, it's being used out of context:

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.

This doesn't void any contacts that prohibit or restrict customers in general, but ONLY in the context of posting reviews. Furthermore it doesn't even void the entire contract, just that specific provision. The provision about an NDA is going to be totally separate. Obviously we'll have to wait and see if there are any loopholes people try to abuse.

11 hours ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

They could punish costumers for negative feedback in the US?

Yes. For example, it was somewhat common practice for Hotels to charge you a fee (To the credit card they had on file that's already required by most hotels) if you post a bad review. You could of course do a chargeback on said fee, but it's still tricky, and the hotel could then ban you from ever returning (Not that you'd want to).

4 hours ago, Thunderpup said:

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. 

As others have mentioned, slander is still illegal. If you make shit up about a person or a company that is negative, that's illegal. But it's up to the company to take you to court over it.

56 minutes ago, Prysin said:

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

Wouldnt that be considered fraud or theft??

Not really fraud or theft if they included some bullshit provision in the contract that says they can do it. This law aims to remove those provisions. It's crazy that this was ever legal to begin with, but as others have said, this is still legal in Canada.

[Yoinkerman]

On 11/29/2016 at 1:27 PM, TetraSky said:

Wait, this was a thing in the US? Businesses going after consumers for a bad review? Wow.. no shame at all.

Mostly small time places like bed and breakfasts and non chain restaurants.  

[Kamina]

Freedom wins again.

[Bensemus]

On 11/29/2016 at 8:19 PM, AresKrieger said:

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

Free speech only protects you from government censorship. It doesn't protect you from companies or talking on non government sites. You can't say your right to freedom of speech has been violated if you are banned form a forum like LTT. LTT can do whatever they want with this site as they own it. 

 

Before this law people were getting penalized by companies for posting bad reviews like saying a hotel sucked or a restaurant's staff were quite rude. The companies were then trying to track these people down or sometimes adding extra charges to bills. This law now makes that illegal.

 

An NDA is where you agree not to talk about something in exchange for something (Usually). For Linus and Co. they sign the NDAs to get early access to hardware and such. They aren't allowed to talk about it until the date stipulated in the contract. After said date they can say whatever they want. There are agreements where you are limited to saying only positive things but again if Linus signed one of those he willingly entered into that contract. People leaving reviews aren't signing anything saying they won't leave negative reviews. This new law isn't about actual legally binding contracts signed by two willing parties. It's about consumers who are being targeted for leaving negative reviews; two very different things. This new law doens't change how NDAs work at all. You never signed anything saying you wouldn't leave a negative review. Companies didn't care and went after those people. Now there is a law which specifically protects people in that situation.

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, Bensemus said:

You can't say your right to freedom of speech has been violated if you are banned form a forum like LTT. LTT can do whatever they want with this site as they own it.

If we're strictly talking about the First Amendment of the US Constitution, LTT doesn't have to abide by it anyway since they're Canadian

[Sauron]

On 29/11/2016 at 9:12 PM, theninja35 said:

What makes a negative review legitimate, though, as opposed to only being posted to ruin the company?

I find it hard to think of an example where independant customers collectively posted unjustly negative reviews just to ruin a company. If it's organized, it becomes slander, which is a crime you can sue people for.

 

Either way it's not the company's place to target these customers and sistematically provide them with poor service.

[KuJoe]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I find it hard to think of an example where independant customers collectively posted unjustly negative reviews just to ruin a company. If it's organized, it becomes slander, which is a crime you can sue people for.

As a small business owner, I get blackmailed all of the time to give free service or pay money in bitcoins or else a group of people will write negative reviews and post them everywhere and even do SEO to get those fake reviews at the top of search pages. It's sad how far people go for a few bucks.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

As a small business owner, I get blackmailed all of the time to give free service or pay money in bitcoins or else a group one people will write negative reviews and post themy everywhere and even do SEO to get those fake reviews at the top of search pages. It's sad how far people go for a few bucks.

You can sue them, even though I'm no law expert I'm fairly sure of that. Depending on how deep this goes it could even be organized crime, although probably not if all they threatened were poor reviews.

 

If I were you I'd tell these people to fuck off, stop giving them anything and kick them out of the shop if they threaten you (might be a good idea to register these conversations). You'll get poor reviews at first but it won't take long for them to realize there's nothing to gain from harassing you and they'll move on. It's basically the good old "don't feed the trolls".

[KuJoe]

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

You can sue them, even though I'm no law expert I'm fairly sure of that. Depending on how deep this goes it could even be organized crime, although probably not if all they threatened were poor reviews.

 

If I were you I'd tell these people to fuck off, stop giving them anything and kick them out of the shop if they threaten you (might be a good idea to register these conversations). You'll get poor reviews at first but it won't take long for them to realize there's nothing to gain from harassing you and they'll move on. It's basically the good old "don't feed the trolls".

It's not worth suing people in other countries and I never give in to blackmail, it results in interesting threads on the forums I am active on.

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

It's not worth suing people in other countries and I never give in to blackmail, it results in interesting threads on the forums I am active on.

Good, my point was that this law doesn't change your situation for the worse.

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Good, my point was that this law doesn't change your situation for the worse.

I know, I was just pointing out there are "professional negative reviewers" out there.

[Bensemus]

5 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If we're strictly talking about the First Amendment of the US Constitution, LTT doesn't have to abide by it anyway since they're Canadian

They don't have to comply with any country's constitution or equivalent as they aren't a government entity. Like I said Freedom of speech only applies to government censorship. Companies are allowed to censor you on their property (within reason. They can't use violence for example).

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Bensemus said:

They don't have to comply with any country's constitution or equivalent as they aren't a government entity. Like I said Freedom of speech only applies to government censorship. Companies are allowed to censor you on their property (within reason. They can't use violence for example).

Errr well, no.

 

They DO have to abide by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and all associated amendments.

 

What you mean to say is that much of the Charter simply doesn't apply to them, as they aren't a Government entity.

 

Also, @M.Yurizaki, LMG does indeed have to abide by multiple US laws - though not necessarily the Constitution as a whole. The reason: LTT server is located in a US data center.

[Bensemus]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Errr well, no.

 

They DO have to abide by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and all associated amendments.

 

What you mean to say is that much of the Charter simply doesn't apply to them, as they aren't a Government entity.

They can't break laws (like discrimination) but they aren't impeding on your right to freedom of speech for blocking you. 

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Bensemus said:

They can't break laws (like discrimination) but they aren't impeding on your right to freedom of speech for blocking you. 

Correct. Because that part of the Charter doesn't apply to their situation. They still have to abide by the charter though.