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From: gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin)
Newsgroups: net.general
Subject: Re: Slander and Liable
Message-ID: <8645@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Aug-83 16:08:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: microsof.8645
Posted: Sat Aug  6 16:08:58 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Aug-83 17:29:13 EDT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Lines: 44

I'm glad that this issue is getting some discussion; I've always
felt that there was too much unsubstantated bad-mouthing on USENET;
often it comes from commercial rivals of the liabled company.
Whats worse, most of the time folks involved in "competitive badmouthing"
don't disclose their competitive relationship to the folks they're
so blithly badmouthing.

With regards to legal issues, I have it on very good authority (from
one who lost just such a suit) that the TRUTH of the statements dosen't
matter - all the company has to do is show that they were DAMAGED and
they've got you by the short hairs.  For example, if they can get
a customer to admit that they bought elsewhere because they read
a USENET article which badmouthed the company's product then "thats
all she wrote".  

I suspect that a lot of company lawyers would pee their pants if they
saw the things that their employees are sending out over the net...
a damaged company would probably sue both the employee and the
employer, just for the fun of it.

For ethical reasons, regardless of the legal ones, Microsoft never
discusses competitors over the net, except in the most minimal
terms: "company X has a product Y."  We don't talk about what
the product does, is claimed to do, or its strengths and weaknesses.
We sometimes see articles asking for info on competing products; we're
naturally experts on their strong and weak points, I might even claim
that we can give more accurate info then the product's producers.
We never do this, though, because we realize that the competitive
situation makes it impossible for us to be unbiased.

Further, when we discuss our OWN products we always make our
professional affiliation very very clear - its important that
readers be aware that the kudos (or brickbats!) are comming from
someone who is very knowledgable, but very likely biased.

Sorry this ran on so long... I think its an issue that people
MUST address, or it won't be long before a few folks are receiving
some very classy, very nasty letters in the mail.  Right now anybody
that can spell "computer" can have a growing company, but when the
markets mature and companys start falling out people will be looking
for things to blame...

	Gordon Letwin
	Microsoft Corp.