WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Hi All.

The owner of the popular Australian broadband website and forum, Whirlpool is being sued by a company called 2Clix over comments Whirlpool users made on the forum regarding 2Clix's software.

More info here and here.

It's certainly a worry when people start suing forums over the opinions of the forum members.

2clix = stupid twits... my opinion only and not necessarily those of WARSUG.

WPXZBP wrote:2clix = stupid twits...

No matter what the outcome of the litigation, considering the story has made it to at least a dozen real (i.e. paper newspapers) news sites, it was either a brilliant stroke of marketing genius to get free publicity or a complete blunder which caused irreparable secondary harm to their reputation. I think the latter...

I mean, who would buy stuff from a company that sues if they don't like people's opinion of them?

Marketing genius? Methinks not!

vk6hgr wrote: It's certainly a worry when people start suing forums over the opinions of the forum members.

It's a worry if people start suing forums and winning.

Otherwie most companies will look at this and realise 2Clix has destroyed themselves (Whether they win or not), and make sure not to make the same mistake themselves.

I think this lawsuit is a result of Whirlpool declining to remove the threads in question. Whirlpool was contacted by the company, and their lawyers on several occasions requesting they be purged.

At the end of the day a company has a right to protect their name and their product. Whether Whirlpool was negligent and has a case to answer will obviously be decided in court. Perhaps next time when legal representatives of a company contact Whirlpool staff they might sit up and pay a bit more attention.

I know that if I start getting letters/emails from lawyers clearly stating that "this material is malicious and false" and a request to remove it I will comply. Surely the Whirlpool staff considered how imminent legal action was?

BLiNG wrote:I think this lawsuit is a result of Whirlpool declining to remove the threads in question. Whirlpool was contacted by the company, and their lawyers on several occasions requesting they be purged.

The threads where people were expressing their opinion on the product? I can't see anything that's nasty - as in defamation - in the threads they're talking about, just people expressing their (negative) opinions on the product.

In my opinion 2Clix would have better spent their money improving their product to address the concerns, rather than resorting to litigation. If Microsoft took this road, then they'd have to sue half the computer users on the planet

People should be free to express their opinions of products without fear of litigation - even if that opinion is bad.

vk6hgr wrote:

BLiNG wrote:I think this lawsuit is a result of Whirlpool declining to remove the threads in question. Whirlpool was contacted by the company, and their lawyers on several occasions requesting they be purged.

The threads where people were expressing their opinion on the product? I can't see anything that's nasty - as in defamation - in the threads they're talking about, just people expressing their (negative) opinions on the product.

In my opinion 2Clix would have better spent their money improving their product to address the concerns, rather than resorting to litigation. If Microsoft took this road, then they'd have to sue half the computer users on the planet

People should be free to express their opinions of products without fear of litigation - even if that opinion is bad.

I agree to some of what you are saying Gav. What I was trying to get at is that I think the malicious comments on Whirlpool will be disregarded come court time. But I think WP have a case to answer on refusing to remove such comments that tarnished the reputation of the company, clearly being maintained on a publically viewable website. Whether the comments are true or not - the 'managers' of the website have neglected legal requests to remove them and I think this is where the magistrate is going to scrutinise WP/Simon the most.

With regards to Microsoft I think we both know it's a case of specifics. How many threads are Microsoft products being maliciously talked about versus how many threads are 2Clix products being maliciously talked about? I am sure Microsoft would follow similar action if a forum thread was big enough and damaging enough to dispatch legal reps. And lets face it... if it was Microsoft serving WP they would be sh*$ing themselves...

I can see that this case is going to set a precedent regardless of the outcome. Having 'no freedom of speech' in Australia opens the door to more of this. Interesting times ahead.

2Clix have officially dropped the law suit. Looks like all forum owners are safe... for now!