A court holds that a hot air balloon salesman’s "gripe site" complaining about his car insurer is free speech, not defamation.

Internet free speech issues are expanding faster than any hot air balloon. How much free speech should the internet tolerate?  Any individual can set up a website detailing a litany of real or imagined horrors suffered at the hands of a business.  Consumers employing effective search engines such as Google (nobody is immune) will easily turn up these "gripe sites" along with any company’s legitimate site.  Prior to the internet, a griper could only stand outside with a protest sign--generally a barely-noticed forlorn figure.

Now, a disgruntled consumer’s creative website can have much more impact against a corporate target.  Often the first search "hit" will be a gripe site that skewers the company’s products and employees. The potential effect on business can be devastating, especially to relatively small companies.

Corporations are often not taking such sites in good humor and have their own ways of fighting back.

Gripe sites also offer much more to any disgruntled customers. For example, weblogs and comments boxes allow a network of similarly dissatisfied customers to compare notes at a scale not possible in pre-internet days. Comparing notes can lead to class actions, or at least a ready pool of potential plaintiffs.

Since things on the internet aren’t always what they appear, I predict that there will soon be spoof gripe sites set up by (1) competitors or (2) lawyers looking for clients.

The internet is not free-wheeling, however. A spoof gripe website neatly qualifies as an unfair business practice, or even wire fraud, under a number of state and federal statutes.

Other reasons for incurring liability include confusion, extortion, or defamation.  It would be a mistake to assume that the internet is a license to defame or engage in unfair business competition.

Electronic Frontier Foundation has been a leader in personal rights on the internet and is a great starting resource.

Posted by Joseph R. McFaul on Thursday, November 03, 2005 at 00:00 Comments Closed (0)

View Weblog Archive