St. John's University Law Faculty Blog

NBC.com’s “Consumer Man,” Herb Weisbaum, quoted Professor Jeff Sovern in the story FTC Sues Diet Pill Maker For Trying To Silence Unhappy Customers. Weisbaum wrote:

With the Internet, companies risk the possibility of getting a bad review that isn’t justified. But the solution isn’t to limit speech, rather to encourage more speech, said Jeff Sovern, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law in New York City.

“I think consumers are smart enough to realize that just because one or two people say they’re unhappy doesn’t mean the company is a bad company or selling a bad product,” he said. “And if the company is selling good products, presumably other consumers will say so on these sites and that will outweigh the ones who are unfairly maligning the company.”

Professor Sovern noted that for the free market to work as intended, people need to be able to warn others about bad products or services. Otherwise, how will other consumers know which products to avoid?

Posted on October 9, 2015 at 8:54 pm in In the Media   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL