Search Engine Placement Lawsuit May Chill Free Speech

[mandy]

A lawsuit filed against Web sites that allege search engine results on Google.com were rigged by a placement firm is being watched throughout the Internet industry, as possibly having an impact on the free speech rights of bloggers

...Traffic-Power.com has filed suit against SEOBook.com and TrafficPowerSucks.com, which each have a lot of adverse commentary about the firm posted on their sites.  Both sites are being sued for comments made by third parties

full story http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/46326.html

[jezebel]

Not just chill but kill free speech if they win. 

[bargainbloodhound]

Experts think the lawsuit may be dismissed as a suit designed to silence comment on matters of public concern]

Hopefully the experts are right, because a win by T-P in this case would open the doors to every other corporation to completely silence any speech on the Internet that was in the least bit unfavorable to them--no matter how legitimate the complaints being voiced were.

[jezebel]

[quote author=bargainbloodhound link=topic=570.msg2254#msg2254 date=1128055738]

Experts think the lawsuit may be dismissed as a suit designed to silence comment on matters of public concern]

Hopefully the experts are right, because a win by T-P in this case would open the doors to every other corporation to completely silence any speech on the Internet that was in the least bit unfavorable to them--no matter how legitimate the complaints being voiced were.
[/quote]

Site owners will be forced to become censors to avoid liability  >

[bargainbloodhound]

This is an earlier article on this case from 9/8.  Google's banning of Traffic-Power is apparently what caused posters to make the comments that resulted in this lawsuit being filed against the 2 sites where the comments were posted.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284...tw=rss.CUL

[Kristijntje]

Followup to this story:

In the case of SEO company Traffic-Power.com, Cutts made an exception, confirming the site had been booted from Google, along with domains promoted by that company.

Cutts' response came in response to Traffic Power accusing the site owner of TrafficPowerSucks.com of defamation and making false claims.

full article: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnew...sting.html

[jezebel]

Experts think the lawsuit may be dismissed as a suit designed to silence comment on matters of public concern]

The Google banning confirms what the experts thought.