Quote:
Originally Posted by MetalFlame  GOL tested K40 and proved to everyone that it's not worth a crap.K40 lawyers forced GOL to take test results off the GOL site.Final agreement with GOL members and Radar Roy was:don't talk about K40 products on RD.net and GOL would not test/post anymore test results and we promise that we won't file a Law suit....That's in VERY short what happened. |
Someone should explain the First Amendment to all of those folks.
As long as GOL was defaming the K40, it's a non-issue (specifically libel in this case, I believe). Basically, in short layman's terms, if GOL espoused their findings as "facts" they would need evidence to back up their claim. i.e. prove that they were telling the truth.... which could simply be their findings in a test.
Another option would be if GOL was clear in that the information presented was their "opinion," then K40 would not have a case. GOL should be stating everything on their site as someone's opinion in the first place as it prevents problems like this from happening.
Under U.S. tort law, truth is an absolute defense, as are statements made in good faith and with reasonable belief that they were true.
Of course, anyone in this country can choose to make threats like that, and unfortunately it happens way too often.
So, one would fathom based on the story being told here that either a) GOL did not want to deal with a legal fight; or b) there really was something funny going on with their testing and GOL did not want that funny business to come to light in a court hearing. Perhaps K40 was right and there was something done improperly with the testing or some bias against K40.
Only the GOL participants would know.
If there were no improprieties in their testing, I would hope the GOL would perform (and publish) the tests again. However, the second time around they might want to make it very clear on their website that the content is the opinion of some person (e.g. author of an article) or some organization. It's not difficult to shield oneself from a company like K40 coming after them. It simply requires some forethought.