{"id":8941,"date":"2016-10-02T11:59:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T18:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=8941"},"modified":"2016-10-17T10:26:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T17:26:50","slug":"now-illegal-sue-bad-online-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/real-estate-marketing\/now-illegal-sue-bad-online-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s now illegal to sue for bad online reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fiscal retribution a thing of the past<\/h2>\n

The U.S. House of Representatives finally passed a bill that will make it illegal for companies to put \u201cgag clauses<\/em>\u201d in their contracts that block or penalize customers for posting negative online reviews. It\u2019s expected to move through the Senate soon.<\/p>\n

Read also: 3 unexpected ways online reviews have upended shopper marketing<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

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\nThis is not the first time I’ve reported on this issue (you can read more here<\/a>) so it’s nice to see there is some sense of resolution taking place that supports the consumer.<\/p>\n

Action and reaction<\/h2>\n

Just to recap a bit. This bill, officially called the Consumer Review Fairness Act<\/a>, is a bipartisan piece of legislation that will void any existing non-disparagement clauses in consumer contracts and give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to take enforcement action against businesses that attempt to use \u201cnon-disparagement\u201d clauses to quiet consumers.<\/p>\n

Crazy stuff, right?<\/p>\n

But the bill is a reaction to several lawsuits that have been levied by companies trying to penalize their customers who speak poorly about them online.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Forget about free speech. A number of businesses insert provisions into contracts and terms of service declaring that if the customer writes or says anything negative about the transaction, the company can seek damages.<\/p>\n

For example, points out an Consumerist<\/a>, gadget and apparel company KlearGear once sued a costumer for nearly $4,000 because the individual wrote a negative review online.<\/p>\n

Or how about this one: a pet-sitter<\/a> sought 1 million dollars in damages over a negative Yelp review.<\/p>\n

All it takes is a voice<\/h2>\n

Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ) and Rep. Joe Kennedy (MA) took up the cause in the House this spring with the Fairness Act. Though the bill garnered significant bipartisan support<\/a>, it still took quite some time getting to the House floor for a vote.<\/p>\n

The issue at stake is about posting and protecting honest feedback online.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Explains Rep. Lance, \u201cOnline reviews and ratings are critical in the 21st<\/sup> Century and consumers should be able to post, comment and tweet their honest and accurate feedback without fear of retribution. Too many companies are burying non-disparagement clauses in fine print and going after consumers when they post negative feedback online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Onward and upward<\/h2>\n

Now that the bill has passed the House, it goes to the Senate. That would normally seem like another political roadblock, but seeing as how the Senate already passed a version of the same bill last year<\/a>, all that\u2019s left really is ironing out the small print in order to combine the two versions before pushing forward for the President to sign.<\/p>\n

#ConsumerReview<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(BUSINESS NEWS) The bill is a reaction to several lawsuits that have been levied by companies trying to penalize their customers who speak poorly about them online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[1215,518],"class_list":["post-8941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-estate-marketing","tag-online-reviews","tag-yelp"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9126,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8941\/revisions\/9126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}