Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pertinent question.
It almost certainly (in the UK at least) would carry a high risk of a defamation claim for the people writing (or generating) them.
defamation applies to people, not objects, right?
Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
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Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#32PR people are a cancer on society.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It almost certainly (in the UK at least) would carry a high risk of a defamation claim for the people writing (or generating) them.
Defamation means lying. You can buy negative reviews of your competition where nobody lies. There are certainly a lot of interesting subtleties and implications here though.
Sure, you could give 100 people the competitors product, have them use it and then review it and just publish the negative ones. Maybe that’s also useful market research.
I don’t think that’s what most people buying reviews online do.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Defamation means lying. You can buy negative reviews of your competition where nobody lies. There are certainly a lot of interesting subtleties and implications here though.
In the US, truthfulness of a statement is an affirmative defense to libel/defamation, but believe it or not, that is not the case everywhere. Specifically, it is not the case in the UK.
Truth is a defence here, but you have to prove that what you said is true, not the other way around.
If you made up 100 negative reviews that’s going to be tricky.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#35Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Defamation means lying. You can buy negative reviews of your competition where nobody lies. There are certainly a lot of interesting subtleties and implications here though.
In the US, truthfulness of a statement is an affirmative defense to libel/defamation, but believe it or not, that is not the case everywhere. Specifically, it is not the case in the UK.
I'm fairly sure that's wrong.
In the UK, you are expected to prove that it is true for the defense to work though, whereas in the US it's generally enough to be able to argue that you reasonably believed that what you said was true. Hence why the UK is a favorite location for celebrities/companies/... to sue compared to the US: It's a lot harder to defend reporting based on hearsay and indirect conclusions there.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#37Asus is on a roll this week
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#38Asus used to be a great company run by great engineers, but in the last couple of years their motherboards have become terrible. By far the worst of the big 4.
As much as I tried to believe in Asus' reputation in the past 20 years, I'm pretty much done with them.
2 of 2 mainboards (TUF and Maximus series) with random reboot issues, 1 of 2 GPUs with firmware issues causing BSODs, 1 of 2 routers (high-end models) with power supply failure problems and sometimes corrupting settings on reboot.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#39Asus used to be a great company run by great engineers, but in the last couple of years their motherboards have become terrible. By far the worst of the big 4.
So who's better? Shopped around for ITX system and it seemed that if I wanted half-responsible firmware updates I'd have to get a SuperMicro and they don't really have what I had in mind.
MSI, for one.
Normally, successful hardware companies are very good.
Re: Asus UK PR believes it is ‘legal to buy positive reviews’
#40But it is legal. The obligation is on the reviewer to highlight they've been paid for a review, otherwise they are illegally misleading their readers. Whether that's moral is another thing.
Almost all new car reviews are paid. It often includes flying reviewers out and paying $500+ a night for their hotel