The Senate is set to debate the Consumer Review Freedom Act after the Commerce Committee approved it. The act makes it illegal for businesses to enact contracts to keep customers from writing online reviews. (Forbes, November 19, 2015, by Eric Goldman)
The EFF is concerned that the law does not address the practice used by businesses to allege unlawful speech and issue copyright takedown notices to those who post the reviews. EFF is also against the provision that allows prosecution of businesses and customers who enter into contracts banning negative reviews. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 23, 2015, by Elliot Harmon)
Florida University professor Clay Calvert writes that the issue does not concern the First Amendment since the amendment only concerns government censorship rather than contracts between nongovernmental entities. He also said that there is still the problem of fake reviews although Amazon stepped up in October by suing over a thousand people selling fake reviews on Amazon’s Web store. (The Conversation, November 23, 2015, by Clay Calvert)