Consumerist reports: Video Professor Stops Suing People For Having Opinions It Doesn't Like.

Colorado infomercial company Video Professor this week dismissed its lawsuit against 100 anonymous defendants who had posted critical comments about its products and billing practices online. Earlier this month, the company withdrew subpoenas that had sought the identity of anonymous posters on the website infomercialscams.com. The company continued, however, to pursue a separate subpoena for the identity of a Wikipedia user who had allegedly written "flagrantly defamatory" (though unspecified) statements about the company in the online encyclopedia. Public Citizen this Monday filed an opposition to Video Professor's motion to extend the time for service of process, arguing that Video Professor's claims were too vague and that its pursuit of an entirely new subpoena threatened to turn the case into a roving commission, giving the company power to discover the identities of anyone criticizing it online. A day after the motion was filed, Video Professor dropped its case entirely.

Paul Alan Levy has a statement on Public Citizen's victory.

A while back I wrote about a lawsuit by Seattle attorneys against the website Avvo.com, which provides rankings of lawyers. This week the Western District of Washington solidly rejected all plaintiffs' claims and granted Avvo's motion to dismiss the case.

While expressing skepticism about the usefulness of lawyer rankings, the court held the ratings to be protected opinion under the First Amendment. As the court noted, it is obvious to any reasonable reader that Avvo's numerical ranking of lawyers is subjective and does not convey any facts capable of being proved true or false. That decision is good news for any websites or other media that provide reviews. A review of a product, service, lawyer, or anything else is inherently subjective, and the targets of unfavorable reviews shouldn't be able to recover damages any time they disagree with a reviewer's opinion.

The court also held that the website was not subject to Washington's Consumer Protection Act because providing an information clearinghouse about lawyers to the public is not "trade or commerce" as used in the Act. Like many other plaintiffs in Internet cases, the plaintiffs here made the mistake of claiming that placing advertising on the website made the site "commercial." But if communications became commercial whenever accompanied by advertising, even the New York Times would have to be regarded as commercial speech. Courts are wise to recognize that speakers sometimes like to be compensated for their time, and supporting communications with advertising does not change the nature of the underlying speech.

Lawyer ratings will never be perfect, but consumers generally benefit from access to more information about the products and services they use. This decision is therefore a victory for consumers.

The New York Times covers Apple's settlement with a Harvard undergraduate that shut down a popular website devoted to rumors about the company. Apple has engaged in a long-running and costly legal battle against bloggers who publish details on unreleased Apple products. In January, Apple lost a case against two bloggers and was forced to pay $700,000 in legal fees under California's anti-SLAPP statute. Apple has now settled its case against another blogger, the operator of ThinkSecret, on confidential terms. And although the blogger and his lawyer are claiming that the First Amendment was vindicated, it's hard to see how that's the case with the website going offline and the terms of the settlement confidential. As my colleague Paul Levy told the Times: "It’s great for the individual critic to be paid to be quiet, but the public is worse off if we lose the ability to get more information in the marketplace of ideas."

Consumerist reports: InfomercialScams.com Gets Sued Constantly.

Justin Leonard, the owner of InfomercialScams.com, has had his share of legal troubles over the past several months. First, he was sued in Florida by the infomercial company GlobalTec, which sells day-trading software. GlobalTec alleged that, by posting reviews of GlobalTec products that turned up in Google searches, Leonard was infringing the company's trademark. With the assistance of Public Citizen, Leonard filed a motion to dismiss, pointing out that, among many other problems with the lawsuit, he lived in Arizona and had no connection with the state where he had been sued. Last month, the court accepted Public Citizen's arguments and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Next, Leonard received a subpoena from Video Professor, an infomercial company that sells video-based courses, demanding that Leonard turn over IP addresses and other personally identifying information about everyone who posted reviews of the company's products. Leonard objected, again with the help of Public Citizen, and yesterday Video Professor withdrew its subpoena, although it did not drop its lawsuit and is apparently still pursuing another subpoena to discover the identity of a Wikipedia user, who the company claims defamed it in the online encyclopedia.

So it came as no surprise to Leonard when he learned of yet another lawsuit against him, this time in Michigan, brought by the Infomercial company Lifestyle Lift, which performs a facelift procedure that it claims takes only about an hour. Predictably, negative reviews of the company began showing up on the Internet, and Lifestyle Lift was not happy. So the company sued Leonard, claiming as others had claimed before that the negative reviews infringed its trademark. Public Citizen again filed a motion to dismiss on Leonard's behalf, asking the court to dismiss the complaint because the First Amendment protects the mention of the company’s trademark on Leonard’s Web site, because Leonard has not violated trademark laws, and because the court has no jurisdiction over Leonard in Michigan.

In addition to the lawsuits, Leonard has received a steady stream of legal threats from other companies demanding that negative reviews be taken offline. Many of these threats are totally without legal basis and seem designed only to bully Leonard into submission. Public Citizen has now defended Leonard on several occasions because, we believe, the Internet's potential as a source for consumer information cannot be realized if website operators are too afraid to post negative reviews. Unfortunately, however, most people don't have access to pro bono trademark lawyers, and defending against a lawsuit or subpoena will often be impossibly expensive for a small website operator.

Unless companies start facing penalties, like judicial sanctions, for lawsuits that are filed for the purpose of squelching negative opinions, they will keep bringing these lawsuits until websites like InfomercialScams.com are no more. And that, you can bet, is exactly what they want.

ConsumerAffairs.com has an interesting article on Video Professor and its lawsuit against 100 anonymous critics.