Gripe Site Prevails in Court
A U.S. district court judge has ruled that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution still protects the people's right to free speech in the case of an online gripe site and the company that was its object.
The gripe site, owned by Lawrence White, used the name of the “business opportunity” company, Career Agents Network, in his domain name and sought to warn others away from signing up and paying their money. In his case, the amount was $49,000, paid in 2008. He rather quickly became unhappy and disillusioned.
In early 2009, the highly disgruntled White purchased the domain names CareerAgentsNetwork.biz and CareerAgentNetwork.biz, mirroring the company's own domain name. On his website, he had a simple, no-frills message:
WARNING: If you are considering investing in this “opportunity”, be aware that it is highly improbable that you will earn enough to cover your investment. If you proceed with this company you have been warned by those that know and have lost $20,000-$150,000 by trusting them and their “plan” — scribd
He worked to increase the search engine ranking of the site, bringing it up to among the top results when people typed in such key words as “career agents network” or “career agents.”
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