Man Getting Sued Over An Amazon Review

So the choice is this: Allow companies to sue people because of a few trolls and make everyone scared, or tolerate a few trolls and let the people speak their minds without fear. I would prefer the second option.

I am perfectly happy letting this guy get fucked up in a civil suite so other can learn what this dude failed to learn. Your actions have consequences and free Speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want to say. Some just have to be an example for others.
 
So, what did the original "review" say? Any company is well within their rights to sue for libel if what was posted was. There is a pretty significant difference between a negative review and libel. Without knowing what the review said, I can't side with anyone on this.
 
They didn't care that he posted a bad review, they cared because he indicated the router had fake reviews from the company. If he had just posted his review and crapped all over the router for being bad, he would be fine and no lawyer would have sent him anything.

The re-branding this is just "meh" to me. There aren't a lot of companies making wireless chip sets.
 
I am perfectly happy letting this guy get fucked up in a civil suite so other can learn what this dude failed to learn. Your actions have consequences and free Speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want to say. Some just have to be an example for others.

You're absolutely correct and this company will have to deal with the consequence of the lawsuit which will be poor PR.
 
Reviews should be protected under free speech as they are all obviously opinion pieces.

Free Speech (as defined by the Constitution of the USA) is only protected from government laws and regulations ... libel and slander are usually civil penalties and are not protected speech (as there is no government involvement in them) ...

Free Speech was never protected from interference or limitations by non-government groups (which is why an employer can fire you for saying things they don't like or prohibit) ;)
 
They didn't care that he posted a bad review, they cared because he indicated the router had fake reviews from the company. If he had just posted his review and crapped all over the router for being bad, he would be fine and no lawyer would have sent him anything.

The re-branding this is just "meh" to me. There aren't a lot of companies making wireless chip sets.

This is my opinion, the cease and desist letter really only mentioned his claims they posted fake reviews as a cause.
 
Reviews should be protected under free speech as they are all obviously opinion pieces.

He hasn't written a review of the product. For the past 2 years he has waged a campaign against ML/MB suggesting they fake the reviews for their products on Amazon. He has offered no proof and continues to suggest they fake the reviews. ML/MB has encouraged him since day 1 to offer proof and to work with Amazon to take down fake reviews and since that time Amazon has only removed 1 review which had ties to an employee at a company related to ML/MB.

Personally I think ML/MB is well within their rights to issue a C&D order and to have the comments taken down.
 
When comparing the level of TIFU'ness, Mediabridge lost.
Right and wrong do not matter here. What you can prove in court, if it ever goes there, is all that would matter from a legal perspective. .

Mediabridge is not in the legal profession, they are in the sell you crap profession and they just went out of their way to nuke some idiot who was not smart enough to write a bad review in such a way that he could not be sued for it. They miscalculated and were to close to the detonation point and review boy was smart enough to alert the REDDIT army of it and the highest rated router on Amazon has at this time fallen from 4.5 stars to 3.5 stars in less than 24 hours. They must have spent a year getting that rating and position and one stupid letter destroyed that PR work in less than a day.

And they can't sue the guy for all the money they just lost because it was their letter to him, not his review, that caused the damage
 
When comparing the level of TIFU'ness, Mediabridge lost.
Right and wrong do not matter here. What you can prove in court, if it ever goes there, is all that would matter from a legal perspective. .

Mediabridge is not in the legal profession, they are in the sell you crap profession and they just went out of their way to nuke some idiot who was not smart enough to write a bad review in such a way that he could not be sued for it. They miscalculated and were to close to the detonation point and review boy was smart enough to alert the REDDIT army of it and the highest rated router on Amazon has at this time fallen from 4.5 stars to 3.5 stars in less than 24 hours. They must have spent a year getting that rating and position and one stupid letter destroyed that PR work in less than a day.

And they can't sue the guy for all the money they just lost because it was their letter to him, not his review, that caused the damage

So REDDIT is the new 4chan? And people think that is a good thing? :p

I still have yet to see a copy of the original review, however I suspect one is floating around. Anyone got a link?
 
It's on the letter linked in the story.

http://imgur.com/a/V0qf3

Was that the whole thing? I thought that was just snippets.

He beats on the fake reviews thing a harder than he should be. He has zero evidence aside from the fact that he thinks they are fake so it must be true (and now he needs to tell the world). The product may be a re-branding of a $20 router, however it can still get a lot of good reviews if people have low expectations. Tons of people are happy with routers if they just work out of the box. The thing could be a total pig and have bad performance, people would still 5 star it as long as it didn't drop their connection.
 
So REDDIT is the new 4chan? And people think that is a good thing? :p

Good thing? I don't think that matters either because it it's not what we want it's what we got.
If you alert them about something like this and enough people agree then they all go to Amazon and post bad reviews. I think this is just another cautionary tale for both the consumer and the company that you don't know how things are going to turn out so you might want to take things a bit less personal and think it through.

It seems after reading a few things that Mediabridge has been getting stuff from this guy for a while though it seems harmless annoying emails and reviews. This from a Mediabridge rep in some comments he/she made at Amazon. It "looks" like the folks at Mediabridge were waiting for this guy to cross the line and when he did they hit him with the letter. Heavy handed and it back fired considering they could have ignored him and it would have caused almost no effect to their bottom line. They made it personal and that is poor business.
 
I am perfectly happy letting this guy get fucked up in a civil suite so other can learn what this dude failed to learn. Your actions have consequences and free Speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want to say. Some just have to be an example for others.

Yes, but the flip side of that is if someone has something truthful to say, they have the right to say that under existing law. By spamming lawsuits in courts that are not near the defendant, you can make it prohibitively expensive to defend yourself even if it is a slam dunk that you have the right to say what you did.

Also, amazon comments are, if judged with a reasonable perspective, a useful tool for making decisions about a product. Amazon knows this. It is not in my interest to participate in a review process knowing I could be sued, justly or not, for anything I might say. Having this vendor present in their store makes Amazon's marketplace less useful to the customers, the folks who in end keep that marketplace afloat.

Being a dick has consequences too.
 
some-what of a Streisand Effect. Person posts negative review. Company sues, claiming defamation and slander, to protect its public image. Word gets out of this lawsuit. Even more people hate the company now. Boycotts begin. Company suffers significant financial loss.
 
MediaLink just interweb'd themselves. What baffoons.

And yeah, I had a MediaLink router. They're OK. But not worth the 5 stars they consistently get. I'd say they're right on par with Monoprice or other generic rebranded routers.
 
Was that the whole thing? I thought that was just snippets.

He beats on the fake reviews thing a harder than he should be. He has zero evidence aside from the fact that he thinks they are fake so it must be true (and now he needs to tell the world). The product may be a re-branding of a $20 router, however it can still get a lot of good reviews if people have low expectations. Tons of people are happy with routers if they just work out of the box. The thing could be a total pig and have bad performance, people would still 5 star it as long as it didn't drop their connection.

I'll also add that if they glue together the same 3rd party bits ina different manner, but both are running the 3rd party reference software with the logos changed, they may not legally be identical, but functionaly, they are going to be the same. Suing someone over "the same" vs. "functionally the same" or "nearly identical" or "very similar", is a stupid move and probably should have been avoided.
 
I ordered a Mediabridge router last year (needed a new one that supported 3.0 DOCSIS).

Obviously I went to amazon and typed in routers, saw the mediabridge with all of it's high reviews and thought "It's not that expensive and people seem to like it."

I tried googling but outside of Amazon I really didn't find many reviews about it.

I ended up ordering it any ways and it was simple and easy to setup/use, worked fine for what I needed.

After ordering it I got an email from the company thanking me for my order and posting their support number/email and asking me to review the router after I have had gotten it.

I assumed then that that is how they had so many high/good reviews.

As far as "rebranding" goes umm, a TON of companies do this, especially when it comes to computer equipment, from hard drives, to power supplies, to monitors, etc.
 
Companies that use legal bullying to intimidate the little guy are the scum of the earth. I hope this shitty company suffers the full wrath of pissing off the internet with this shit.
 
He's not getting sued over an Amazon product review, he's being asked to stop posting unsupported claims against the company.

Its one thing to post a negative review about a product or service, its a complete different thing to go on a months long rampage against a company and its products and offer zero proof to back up your claims.

The guy was trolling the product review and people think that is commendable?

If he truly was getting sued for a negative review of a product I would be all for boycotting Mediabridge. But, I don't see a problem with their actions. I personally would have just gone the route of working with Amazon to have his comments removed.
 
Good thing? I don't think that matters either because it it's not what we want it's what we got.
If you alert them about something like this and enough people agree then they all go to Amazon and post bad reviews. I think this is just another cautionary tale for both the consumer and the company that you don't know how things are going to turn out so you might want to take things a bit less personal and think it through.

It seems after reading a few things that Mediabridge has been getting stuff from this guy for a while though it seems harmless annoying emails and reviews. This from a Mediabridge rep in some comments he/she made at Amazon. It "looks" like the folks at Mediabridge were waiting for this guy to cross the line and when he did they hit him with the letter. Heavy handed and it back fired considering they could have ignored him and it would have caused almost no effect to their bottom line. They made it personal and that is poor business.

Wow, you think this company is hurt? Not even close. There store is offline because they have put a wall up, it's cheaper then taking time to clean things out after the public pisses all over it in a hissy fit. Those two posts off that letter were four months apart, that dude must have a real hard on for this company. It's just a little too psychotic looking to me. In two weeks this thing will be forgotten and joe six-pack will be right back there buying $20 routers. And Amazon will be getting their slice just like before. Sometimes the masses are idiots and this certainly looks like one of those times. They think they are using the power of the internet to combat evil, what fools.
 
Another case of the news being selective of what details it publishes. Now that I know he bashed the company and claimed they inflated the reviews I have sympathy for neither and will avoid the company due to failure to act with appropriate design rather than what seems to be the motif of the current lines of thought.
 
Another case of the news being selective of what details it publishes. Now that I know he bashed the company and claimed they inflated the reviews I have sympathy for neither and will avoid the company due to failure to act with appropriate design rather than what seems to be the motif of the current lines of thought.

Maybe it's a different perspective, I don't avoid them, I select those with quality products like the ones that produced the last router I bought.

http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC68U-Wireless-AC1900-Dual-Band-Gigabit-Router/dp/B00FB45SI4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399583189&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+wireless+ac+router++68u
 
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Relax everybody. My comment was a general comment about the concept of being sued for your opinion. Admittedly, I did not read this guys posts. I don't give a shit about him. If the guy went on a review rampage attacking the company without proof then that is a completely different thing.

Companies need to relabel their review sections to "Product Opinion" & put this shitty behavior to rest for everybody's sake.
 
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Companies that use legal bullying to intimidate the little guy are the scum of the earth. I hope this shitty company suffers the full wrath of pissing off the internet with this shit.

People who don't read the article or understand what's going on and decide to chime in anyways are the scum of the earth imo.
 
People who don't read the article or understand what's going on and decide to chime in anyways are the scum of the earth imo.

What are you, a shill for this horrible company?

You do realize that Amazon just revoked their seller's license over this. So apparently plenty of people agree with my position, including Amazon themselves.
 
H is getting worse than reddit with the circle jerking. If anyone bothered to read the unedited review, he clearly stated that his views were opinions. The only thing he posted as facts were clearly backed up with outside reviews of the company's products.

This guy lawyered up quick, and the lawyer knew his shit. I'm sure he was instructed on the timing of taking down his review (Which he's done), that way he complies with their absurd demands, while having already let the shit hit their fan.

Whether or not people think it was libel, the law firm that sent this letter was an unprofessional shithole. Many typo/mispellings, throwing in all kinds of legal terms that would never apply to the case itself, and in general just trying some bullshit bully tactics without understanding the Streisand effect.

They got what they deserved.
 
If what is written is true, then the corp scum can fuk themselves. I have written a number of critical reviews, all scathingly true, and if sued I'd certainly never think to pay, even if a compromised justice system told me to. We're becoming a toady nation, and it's sickening.
 
If what is written is true, then the corp scum can fuk themselves. I have written a number of critical reviews, all scathingly true, and if sued I'd certainly never think to pay, even if a compromised justice system told me to. We're becoming a toady nation, and it's sickening.

Did you write any reviews claiming the seller faked positive reviews with no evidence?
 
H is getting worse than reddit with the circle jerking. If anyone bothered to read the unedited review, he clearly stated that his views were opinions. The only thing he posted as facts were clearly backed up with outside reviews of the company's products.

This guy lawyered up quick, and the lawyer knew his shit. I'm sure he was instructed on the timing of taking down his review (Which he's done), that way he complies with their absurd demands, while having already let the shit hit their fan.

Whether or not people think it was libel, the law firm that sent this letter was an unprofessional shithole. Many typo/mispellings, throwing in all kinds of legal terms that would never apply to the case itself, and in general just trying some bullshit bully tactics without understanding the Streisand effect.

They got what they deserved.

I sincerely hope that this troll's lawyer can prove his original claims now that Mediabridge can show the irreparable harm that he caused to the company. Mediabridge sold there products only through their website and Amazon and Amazon sales were likely the bulk of the business. I hope everyone supporting an Internet troll is willing to contribute to his legal defense when Mediabridge shows that his unsubstantiated claims about their products and their attempts to protect their brand integrity caused them to lose their storefront.

Should I also mention that real people are going to lose their jobs because of this troll and the complete tools who supported him? Way to go Internet. Way to take it to Corporate America. Because of you a small business will likely close its doors.
 
I sincerely hope that this troll's lawyer can prove his original claims now that Mediabridge can show the irreparable harm that he caused to the company. Mediabridge sold there products only through their website and Amazon and Amazon sales were likely the bulk of the business. I hope everyone supporting an Internet troll is willing to contribute to his legal defense when Mediabridge shows that his unsubstantiated claims about their products and their attempts to protect their brand integrity caused them to lose their storefront.

Should I also mention that real people are going to lose their jobs because of this troll and the complete tools who supported him? Way to go Internet. Way to take it to Corporate America. Because of you a small business will likely close its doors.

Who did the most damage, the internet troll or Mediabridges management. I agree that this company will take a hit and people will lose there jobs but the blame lays entirely on the management for going after a someone in this fashion.
 
I hope Amazon reverses their position on this if the reviewer and company can straighten it up. I do use Mediabridge cables, I'm a fan of their construction and presentation.
 
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