Taken to the ‘cleaners’
Amway’s sister is getting her socks in a bunch. You remember Amway — the company known for nutrition, beauty and, oh yeah, cleaning products.
Seems like the company, which goes by the name Quixtar, has gone to court to get more than $25,000 in damages against online posters for making disparaging remarks about the company’s parent, Alticor. Former distributors, Quixtar thinks, did the dastardly deeds, even after former distributors were told not to bad-mouth Alticor when they lost a lawsuit against Alticor.
According to the lawsuit, Quixtar thinks former employees posted the remarks on blogs, forums and in YouTube videos, the Associated Press says. The company doesn’t know who the people really are, but hopes subpoena power will force online companies to help them figure who these people are.
This is all soap-opera-ish, but there are larger issues here for the Internet crowd: How will this affect future postings in blogs, etc.? Is “free speech” on the Internet really free, or a dying breed? The record and movie companies have already told us they have the power, and have proved it, to subpoena our ISPs to see if we’ve been illegally downloading audio and video junk they put out; now Mr. Businessman wants to take us to court when we say something he doesn’t like.
And likely, again, our ISPs will help things along. Again.
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