A reader came to me this week with a problem. He was being sued in federal court by a company claiming he had defamed them online. That will be $75,000, please. I’m not getting into who the reader is, which company is suing, even what jurisdiction, because none of that matters here. But the case is real and I feel for the reader. So let’s come up with a way to make sure this doesn’t have to happen again.
America is a very litigious society. We love to get all riled up and sue each other, whether our claims are valid or not. In this reader’s case he is accused of making improper comments in an online forum. Seventy-five other people are also accused in the suit, but they are John Does — unknown individuals. Now we begin to see where that $75,000 claim came from. “All of you defamed me but only one used his real name so he can pay for everyone.”
In this case investors were discussing a public company the shares of which they did or didn’t own, liked or didn’t like, and the company seems to feel the criticism was both unwarranted and hurtful. So they sued, much to the surprise of my reader, who thought he had a right to his opinions.
Of course we have a right to our opinions. It’s expressing those opinions that sometimes gets us in trouble. I say a lot of strong stuff right here but I also try to do it carefully. It helps if you are telling the truth, of course, but I find it useful even then to clearly identify strong statements as my opinions: “It is my opinion that he is a crook.”
After all, I could be wrong.
Many lawsuits are warranted but some look to me like bullying or even legal extortion. Sometimes it is cheaper to pay an undeserved settlement than to pay even more to win and get nothing. Big companies play this game. But everything is relative: my HVAC contractor sued me for not paying him for the work he didn’t do, following what I believed (note, this is my opinion) to be a similar legal strategy, figuring that I would pay to make the nuisance go away. Only I didn’t pay. That’s not my style.
But a lot of people do pay and I would guess (again, my opinion) this can have a chilling effect on public discourse even to the point of affecting the public’s right to know.
So let’s fix the system. Here’s my idea. If I were Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn — web sites that like to serve as centers of discourse — I’d offer my members a legal plan. No annual subscriptions or pre-payments necessary, but there would be a $500 deductible. Remember this is for legal services, not for paying settlements, so if you lose you pay the damages, though not the associated legal bills.
Let’s imagine Google gives this a try, because they’ll try just about anything that can be reduced to an algorithm as this can be.
Hire a top law firm; charge a $500 deductible for $1 million in legal services; show a profit by scaring the crap out of people with cleverly written form letters actually sent by androids; rinse, repeat one million times.
And it would work. People would think twice before writing words they might later regret. But if those words were truly heartfelt and the cause important enough they might be worth $500. And those being talked about might still pursue lawsuits, but it won’t work well for them because Google will always have more money than they do. Game over.
This could be the idea that puts Google+ over the top.
So if you happen to work for Google and agree this is a fabulous idea, I’ll be happy to license it for a very modest sum. But if you just take the idea and run with it, remember one thing.
I’ll sue you.
Mr. Cringely,
Your podcasts for some reason are not showing up on iTunes… any chance the problem is farther upstream than my system?
Just checking – thanks for all you do. Your content, thoughts and insights are great!
Brian
It’s all my fault. I’ll fix it tonight.
The $75,000 part is a jurisdictional component – because the suit is defamation and a state law claim, the only way to get into federal court is to claim diversity jurisdiction, and that has a jurisdictional limit of $75,000. Claim anything less and they have to sue in state court. Odds are that there may be a SLAPP countersuit available to the Defendant, so it is possible the Defendant could walk away with attorney’s fees and/or other money.
And if you sued over the idea, you would lose.
I know that Mr. Smartypants: it’s a joke.
nonsense – especially the last line:
“I’ll sue you.”
no way – you mean actually draw up a case and argue in court? no way, more like this:
“I’ll hire someone to sue you”
americans don’t argue for what they want – but they will happily pay someone to do it for them. The ONLY reason there are so many lawyers and they are paid so well is because americans can’t work things out for themselves.
There are very few lawyers in China – why? no demand – because people who have an issue work it out on the spot.
i have seen at least 4 car accidents where settlement was made – in cash – on the spot – no lawyers, no insurance companies, no police. people are not afraid to work it out for themselves and go on with their business.
americans are so dumbed down that they outsource their ARGUMENTS, so the service of arguing for a fee becomes very lucrative.
you state:
“America is a very litigious society. We love to get all riled up and sue each other, whether our claims are valid or not.”
totally not true – if you took away all of the lawyers and people actually had to work this out for themselves this culture would not exist. Suing some company or other is a gutless lottery ticket move and people should not waste their time. Do you seriously want to be the McDonalds coffee guy? come on – get a life.
The Chinese believe in the rule of men, not the rule of law, hence knowledge of the law isn’t as crucial to the outcome in court.
China is a Civil Code society. We are Common Law.
In Japan, at least, the often the outcome of civil code issues are printed out in book that is fairly widely available. Judges are the finder of fact and finder of law – so out comes are extremely predictable. That’s one reason there’s less litigation in Civil Code societies.
China would have added elements: its a non-democratic authoritarian state. Even in our system, the best course of action is to stay out of a court of law because the processes is so expensive (and also outcomes are so uncertain), in addition to wanting to avoid an expensive process legal process in China, you also want to avoid being noticed by officialdom – that’s a very valid instinct that probably has 2000 years of history backing it. Freedom by stealth.
Before you get excited about how great Civil Code societies must be, not being litigious and all, keep this in mind: ONLY Civil Code countries collapsed into rogue ideological rule during the international crisis of the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the only notable ones that did not were Czechoslovakia and France (which was paralyzed between radical left and right political wings… many French rightist actually welcomed the Nazis figuring they’d hunt down the leftist). Almost all other Civil Code countries succumbed to rogue ideological rule: Russia (on the left), Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary (first left, then right), Germany, Japan, China (again, first right, then left). The Common Law countries muddled through the crisis eventually working out a pragmatic solution to the crisis, (a mixed economic system and a tolerant political system, exemplified by the New Deal: Not always perfect, but efficacious, at least for quite some time.
The reason is complicated, and I won’t explain it here, but related to the fact that in Common Law Countries judges make law, (Gasp! activist judges saved civilization?!). There’s a reason why the people assaulting the institutes of the New Deal are very ideological and hate activist judges.
Anyway, that’s all way off subject, except to say, China and America are worlds apart legally.
Um, can I take your class? Very interesting stuff for history and law buffs alike.
Sign me up, too. Very informative and interesting post. If this were slashdot, and I were moderating, I’d tag you with a +5 Informative.
Count me in, also! Excellent analysis of legal philosophy VS political outcomes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants
If this is the ‘guy’ you’re referring to – then I disagree. Third degree burns and eight days in hospital and a jury of her peers determined that while she was 20% accountable McDonalds warnings were neither large enough nor sufficient. This was not a case of suing a big corporate as a lottery at all. This was a case of suing a big corporate to cover medical expenses incurred due in most part to their negligence. Further I doubt the plaintiff would have got far taking her medical costs back to the local store manager and asking for reimbursement, or sorting it out herself.
Imagine that. Expecting someone to know that hot coffee was hot and could burn you and expecting them to not spill it on themselves. Regardless of what the jury found, and they do have more information than me, I smell an anti-big-company finding.
Facts are stubborn things. The Wikipedia entry reveals some important pieces of information:
–Leibeck herself wanted to settle and only asked for $20,000 for medical and other expenses.
–McDonald’s had an official corporate policy that required coffee to be kept at a certain temperature. That temperature was proven to be capable of causing third degree burns.
–McDonald’s had received more than 700 reports of coffee burning their customers from 1982 to 1992. This wasn’t an isolated incident that McDonald’s had never encountered before.
–The bulk of the judgment was for punitive damages in the amount of $2.7 million. The jury chose to award this on their own.
Punitive damages has it’s own set of legal theories behind it. One primary goal being to punish a tortfeasor (fancy word for the person who causes harm to another) sufficiently so that they are persuaded to change their behavior in the future. This legal principle has a “common social good” purpose behind it.
McDonald’s appealed the judgment and in the end they settled for less than $600,000. People who hate lawyers are comically inept at being factually honest when they make arguments about lawsuits and lawyers.
I was hoping someone would put that joker in his place. Facts are a real problem for the reality challenged.
The lesson of this story is to never use your real name on any social networks or forums; and if you decide to say anything even remotely libelous then use a proxy server so you can’t be tracked. Free speech finds a way…
“Free speech finds a way…”
That’s an oxymoron actually.
Huh? What in that phrase is an oxymoron?
I was wondering the same thing.
Well, I’m no English major, but let me give it a try. Perhaps he meant that if you have to “find a way,” you don’t really have free speech? Technically, I guess it’s not an oxymoron, but it certainly is a contradiction in terms, which amounts to the same thing.
it’s an oxymoron because if you have to hide your name in order say something, then it’s not really “free” is it?
Being free to speak from the point of view of the law is the first step. But that is not going to stop the lawless from punishing you for it. Hence the desire to hide one’s identity even when speaking the truth. That’s also what the gvernment’s witness protection program is for.
the last line of this post is pretty clearly a joke, people.
For another $500 Google will provide an official liaison to rewrite user comments in a way as to not offend or confuse anyone. Especially jokes.
It looks like recently some fool tried to do exactly what Bob was lampooning and got slapped around by a federal judge:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110805/17230815417/patent-troll-lawyers-smacked-down-made-to-pay-sanctions-mass-lawsuits-followed-quick-settlement-offers.shtml
I like the idea, because it reminds me of poll taxes, in that people eventually looked at them as a de-facto barrier to universal voting rights, and went about to universalize the system.
So, you start with this, then when everyone else wants to get on this whole “my free speech is protected not just from the government” thing, then perhaps, assuming all entitlements aren’t burned to the ground during the coming coups (my fanciful opinion), there will be groundwork for people to be protected from extortion and harassment from any powerful body, not just the government.
One may, however, use this against the company that has set up protected speech, unless I’m mistaken. Could you not simply attempt to sue everyone who had any opinion whatsoever? Frivolous lawsuits are still a weapon people use, even if it opens one up to problems down the road. If a hypothetical entity wanted to bring down a firm they didn’t like, they could use that firm’s auto-lawyer defenses against it, suing as many people as they could who had that clause. The legal teams would either have to bail out of some of their commitments, or they might wind up tanking Google’s funds.
That’s assuming, though, that people think the right to express their opinion without fear of being instantly trampled is worth 500 dollars. Of course we’re willing to defend our opinions in principle, but 500 dollars… that’s a lot of dinners, with meat even.
I had a similar idea a while ago, only it was simply a community support clause. A provider would say that they were committed to the free expression of ideas in all its forms within the confines of its pages, and that when you decide to view anything there you are making a tacit agreement not to violate anyone’s right to free expression in that forum. Suing after the fact might me more difficult if you first sign a paper saying suing someone was against the agreement. That’s my opinion, though. I could be wrong.
“It is my opinion that he is a crook.”
Yikes. You probably should check with a lawyer before suggesting you can escape a defamation suit by attaching “my opinion” to everything. Because you’ll quickly discover opinions do not shield you from defamation law. What matters is, can what you said be factually evaluated as either true or false? i.e. Can “He is a crook” be answered definitively yes or no? Yes, it can. Crook = criminal. Criminal means someone involved in criminal behavior or with a conviction on record. You’d better hope the subject of your statement has one. Because if not, you may have committed defamation.
“He’s an idiot” — with or without the qualifying “in my opinion” — is a statement that can’t be objectively evaluated as true or false/fact or not a fact. Therefore that cannot ever be defamation.
So be careful how you think “my opinion only” protects you. “After all, I could be wrong.” — Exactly.
“He’s an idiot” — with or without the qualifying “in my opinion” — is a statement that can’t be objectively evaluated as true or false/fact or not a fact. Therefore that cannot ever be defamation.
Uh, who is it being talked about?
It’s pretty hard to sue unless he actually identifies you by name – whether or not he qualifies by saying “my opinion”.
“Idiot” (and moron, etc.) are quantified terms based on their “mental age:. If you’re going to pick nits about “crook” then you could get tangled up in those objective terms too.
“In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for mental retardation based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to 7 years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.[7] IQ, or intelligence quotient, is determined by dividing a person’s mental age, as determined by standardized tests, by their actual age. The term “idiot” was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30.[8][9]”
Waivers, disclaimers, and “hold harmless” clauses notwithstanding, we remain gagged by the thin skinned overly litigious… in my personal opinion.
Okay, so he’s not a crook, but I still believe he’s an idiot.
Yeah, who’s that then? 🙂
I like your idea Bob but I have a slightly off topic question inspired by your last comment: Could you actually sue (and win) someone who copies a business idea you have written about in a blog? What legal protection does blogging an idea give you? It is not a patent. It is not a trademark. The text is copyrighted but the idea surely isn’t. I thought that by writing about your idea in a public blog you have effectively given it away for free. You could use the blog as evidence of prior art to prevent someone else patenting the idea I guess but not to protect it for yourself.
Mind you this whole Intellectual Property minefield has become so confusing these days that for all I know blogging an idea does confer ownership. I am just confused.
Concepts — i.e., business models — generally aren’t protected by the law.
I MIGHT have a shot if I had a business process patent, but I don’t have one. The commenter is correct: it was just a joke.
That Nigerian Prince never gave me the money he promised. Does anybody have his attorney’s name please?
Arthur N. Onymous, of course. goes by the initials.
and as for the lawyer’s skills: how do you think the 419ers have that 10 billion dollars in the bank, eh?
Arbitration seems to be the big thing for companies. Can’t Google just put in an arbitration clause:
At the request of the defendant, any court case may be subject to forced arbitration. The plaintiff shall be responsible for a least half of the arbitration costs.
This would be a great idea for a federal statute. But Google could never promote this policy because the allegedly defamed plaintiff is not a party to any contract binding him to arbitration (because he’s not the one who used a Google-administered forum to comment).
The problem with Corporate deformation is ‘Corporate’ (word means body). It has a short history (1870’s) in law. Who speaks on behalf of the body the board or the CEO. Just recently the courts upheld the CEO’s as spokesmen for the shareholders in electing the board. With due respect the judgement is an Ass. I’m in contempt! But my defense is that my opinion will prevail. My servants have a duty to me, and can advise but can’t deceive or defraud, as Robert X ( what does X mean) most probably used against his HVAC contractor!
That Nero makes a horse consul is meaningless because the horse must speak its commands! Added to show stupid governance!
And as Google Vs Oracle had shown discovery puts sh*t on Google face! Not my words but I paraphrased Judge.
And if you believe that the sun shines out of Google’s orifice then you don’t understand the previous sentences! And believe that Corporations are pure!
“Who speaks on behalf of the body the board or the CEO.”
Many years ago when the USA government was not corrupt it sued GM for doing unnecessary changes constantly the CEO took the rap, got a golden parachute and the board remained pure!
Today everyone is a puppet of Google even the US government — thanks Bush43
Oh and thanks for not taxing the rich corporations and borrowing $10 trillion in 8 years and f*%king USA up.
The big corporations can then run USA how they like with pollution with blackmail ([Google] see the Monty Python sketch) slavery and fear of making you bankrupt!
Free at last!
“…then you don’t understand the previous sentences”. Correct, I don’t.
Internal Google memos show it ready to not license Java and thus break the law and steal Sun Java intellectual property — the court case is the fan what else do you not understand!
What it shows is Google is a serial offender##! An “unauthorized” (official Google reply) modification on Google street view cars in every nation that it was used in and Google could not tell that it used that data and it did not know that it was illegal in some nations to do it! Believe in 72 virgins waiting for you!! — The best advertising slogan ever — no one can ever tell its true!
## A habitual law breaker! It believes that breaking the law is not evil espeacially if not found out!
“An unjust law is no law at all” – Augustine.
Illegal != evil (or unjust, or immoral), for large values of illegal.
if you think comments in the tech world are rough, you haven’t been reading the sports sites.
“I’ll sue you”. Oh no you won’t! You can have as good an idea as you like but if you publish it without seeking a patent, anyone can use your idea and, if they patent it, you can’t use it! (I guess you knew this!)
But I did laugh, which was your purpose!
So why not call it a copyright instead? Then it doesn’t need to be legally filed to be enforceable, and you’ll have the RIAA on your side.
Just for giggles..
What would be a modest sum?
a “modest sum” would be north of a “token sum,” usually one dollar, and south of “sixtythree umptillion zillion dollars and ten cents.” I’d peg it as 20 bucks because you’d have to make an ATM run for it in usual circumstances, but most folks wouldn’t be jailed for it.
Nail On The Head when it comes to the effect on public discourse. In public engagement matters, it’s called SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) and I’ve seen it – or behaviour that seems indistinguishable from it – used several times here in BC in forestry, pesticide and mining issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
there is way too much ugly on These Connected Internets. but we can’t go back to the 56K backbone and terms of service that I once knew. for one thing, I couldn’t get tubes for my restoration projects.
we really need a central appeals board of some sort to look at one and only one thing: was comment X actually “fair comment and criticism” as codified in zillions of court rulings on the first amendment?
if so, screw you and your lawsuit attempt, dismissal with prejudice, and if you keep harassing the commenter, you lose your online privileges.
if not, sue away.
enforcement would be an issue, however… China among others basically tries this, and you know, there are more holes in the Great Firewall than our border fence.
I know he is a public figure and the President and we have a right to express our opinions, but I somehow think he could finance his 2012 election just from suing the right-wing nuts that post on Yahoo News and other similar sites.
I am expressing a humorous idea that sounds funny, but I doubt it would work. I’m also pretty sure those same right-wing nuts don’t have the money for the initial $50.00. I just love the idea of a Presidential candidate paying for their election through legal fees by people posting slanderous comments, as opposed to secret million dollar donations through fictitious corporations.
Heh, I had an opposite situation happen once. I wrote a hooting/howling e-mail of derision to a website owner who took the unusual step of publishing the letter on his webpage, because I was foolish enough to sign my real name to the letter! I’m fairly certain that if I had published my comment on my own, with my real name, I would have been susceptible to lawsuit; but because I wrote my opinion in a private letter, and the object of my derision chose to publish it themselves, then I suppose they had no legal footing to sue.
And I guess I had no legal footing to sue either, because I in fact was the author of the letter which they copied verbatim onto their site.
So this was a couple years ago, and the site has now ceased to exist including all record of my criticism. Once in a while I would “google” myself and there was my letter fairly prominently in the ranking, now it has completely vanished, along with the website.
So I don’t know what to make of my personal experience, except maybe I should be careful about who I anger with my words?
But yes thank you very much for the reminder, one should always be careful about casually defaming someone/something. We write these words thinking we are speaking to friends, but as it so happens we are actually publishing to a potentially large, unknowable audience.
Actually, Google is the least likely company to legally defend their users. They’re not even backing their Android software. They’re crying instead about how the law is unfair.
There are numerous complaints in the media about the patent system, the need for patent reform, and whether software patents should be copyrights instead. It may take someone as big as Google to bring such issues to the Supreme Court rather than capitulate and participate in the flawed system, not matter how many other big companies have already done so.
One word: barratry.
I learned my lesson years ago when I published a quote from an Science Fiction book on a “personal” web page that I thought no one would but friends would ever see. Well, the HR people at a contract job I was working at the time saw it, thought I was a psychotic killer only because of the quote, and fired me without an explanation. Then when I told them I was going to go to my contract agency and talk to them about this, the HR people called the police and out of the blue said “I talked about going to the contract agency with a gun and shooting them”. When the police who handcuffed me didn’t find a gun, and I was able to straighten it out, I still didn’t have a job. I also really didn’t have any grounds to sue anyone myself either. So all I’m left with is this story.
The story is true. I still have the police report. The company was Yahoo (so I have proof in case they try to sue me). I still think I had the last laugh since I prospered in my career and they’re company is a ghost of its former self now. 🙂
Lesson learned: DO NOT assume that you can publish, copy, quote or give an opinion about anything on the Internet, newspaper or other public media and expect it to be private. Anything you say that is recorded ANYWHERE can and will be used against you by anyone who decides they don’t like you, and they will do nasty things like try to sue or harm you in some way if they can. THERE IS NO PRIVACY! There is also no safety just because you have a fake name and are copying to a web page. You can be found, you can be tracked, you can be confronted if they have the means and will to do so.
Getting arrested, charged, and jailed is truly a surreal experience that really lets you know that you should be behaving better in a civil society. And civil society is absolutely correct, that’s where the police come at you and politely ask “sir, did you notice you were speeding and ran a red light?” and your very best course of action is to reflect that politeness right back at them.
In the old days somebody would say something uncomplimentary (not necessarily slanderous or defamatory), and it could become a duelling situation, and you could literally wind up dead or permanently disabled over a simple misunderstanding.
As a matter of fact I’ve found it a very helpful plan to simply read & absorb Carnegie’s “how to win friends and influence people” on a regular basis, like every 6 months or so. Because there is a way to criticize without ever resorting to impoliteness, uncivility, hostility, etc. which is what really causes all the problems.
[…] […]
I assume the offer of legal services is not guaranteed, but contingent on The Large Company looking over the evidence and deciding there is some merit to defending the client. Otherwise The Large Company would wind up defending a lot of inflammatory language, which would look bad when selectively quoted. So the chance of turning a profit would depend in part on how many cases they had to evaluate to find the ones they wanted to take on, and the evaluation probably couldn’t be done with androids.
This has lots of good elements for a TV series, though.
“Google will always have more money than they do.” I guess I don’t understand why Google’s money matters if they are not indemnifying the posts but merely covering legal expenses. People may well “speak the truth” according to their own beliefs, say something they can’t prove in court, get sued, loose, and have to pay the damages plus the deductible. This would encourage lawyers to encourage lawsuits they expect they likely won’t win just so they can charge Google for the legal defense expenses. And on the off chance that they win, well that’s just extra unexpected income. Ambulance chasing is not illegal and it happens where there is money to be made.
Why so ChickenSheet bob?????
Name the company doing the suing!
they should be shamed !
In addition I think it is the libel laws that need be done away with. They are outdated in the age of the internet. People need to understand that they have to
exercise critical thinking when reading the net and accept that bad & untrue things will occasionally said. Suing just makes it look like they struck a nerve.
The idea sounds like an extension of excess liability insurance, or a legal services plan. I pay less than $20 a month for an excess liability policy that insures me against (a limited set) of legal judgments that might be more than my automobile or homeowners insurance policy limits. As my lawyer pointed out, I’m not really insuring against the very remote chance that someone will win a million-dollar judgment; I’m insuring against the slightly less remote chance that someone will sue me for a million-dollar judgment.
The legal services plan is similar. I pay for 1-2 hours of a lawyer’s time each year whether I use it or not, to protect against the slight chance that I might need 100 hours of time.
(PS – Google wouldn’t need to create software to generate the letters. We’re currently graduating about twice as many lawyers as job openings 🙂
“America is a very litigious society. We love to get all riled up and sue each other, whether our claims are valid or not.”
While there is some truth to the idea that certain countries/cultures are more conflict-oriented than others, I have to take issue with this statement.
A key marker for litigation activity is simply economic activity. Nations with larger economies tend to have more litigation because there is more activity and interaction (especially between relative strangers, and between businesses and people).
This is true whether the activity involves Industry (products manufactured and shipped to far off places); People (traveling more frequently and for longer distances); or Commerce (how many business do you buy products from? How many products do businesses buy from other businesses?). More activity means more opportunity for conflict, harm, and a genuine need to remedy those harms.
If we were to look at litigation levels when U.S. economic activity was more modest (pre-industrial age, for example), I think this theory would bear out by showing fewer lawsuits.
This theory isn’t always true, but the reasons why it isn’t true often involve nations with where individual liberty is not in high supply (e.g. China, North Korea, Iran).
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
Here’s why this is a bad idea:
“America is a very litigious society.”
Yes, but pretty much nobody else is, certainly not in the same league.
According to wiki:
“By region, 42% of the world’s Internet users are based in Asia, 24% in Europe, 14% in North America, 10% in Latin America and the Caribbean taken together, 6% in Africa, 3% in the Middle East and 1% in Australia/Oceania.”
So would it make sense for Google to have a legal plan like that if every Google user was a potential customer? Perhaps.
But for 14% of their customers? Hardly.
Here is a better way to fix the system: FIX THE SYSTEM.
Do what the rest of us have done, make sure your politicians will create a better system where “legal scams” (because that’s what it is) such as the ones you describe does not work.
By the way:
Yes, I oversimplified. The statistics for internet usage may not correspond to Google users, but even if we assume that Americans are overrepresented by 100% (to a quarter of all Google users) the idea still doesn’t look as good.
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
[…] and keep raising the bar.” Robert Cringely is upset by people’s online behavior and proposes an Internet civility plan. A guy works out of a 78-square-foot office in Manhattan. Recent studies show that […]
One of my forum members got threatened with a $100,000 lawsuit for debunking the “Fuel Doctor” fuel saver products for cars:
https://www.compendiumarcana.com/fuel_doctor_fd47/
(Read the owner hilarious email at the bottom of the page!)
And here is the letter from their lawyer essentially trying extort $5000 out of him, or else cop the $100,000 law suit:
https://www.compendiumarcana.com/fuel_doctor_fd47/syverson.pdf
Naturally the did nothing and just laughed at them, and hasn’t heard a peep since.
Dave.
We are falling off the back side of the Magee Curve.
https://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/byrns_web/ModMicro/ModMicro00_intro0_files/image010.gif
There are very few lawyers in China – why? no demand – because people who have an issue work it out on the spot.
In my opinion, companies tend to sue over “defamation” when they know the negative opinion about them is true. The lawsuit is a way of generating smoke and noise to obfuscate the truth.
-Mike
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