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From: bzs@bucsd.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Sears
Message-ID: <153@bucsd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Feb-86 15:38:06 EST
Article-I.D.: bucsd.153
Posted: Sun Feb  9 15:38:06 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Feb-86 07:43:24 EST
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Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
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Re: is it libel to post negative comments about a product to the net?

I have no idea, but I sure hope not. Of course if some lawyer from some
big corporation decided to take you on I guess you could be 'dead right'
as they say.

The funny thing is that a very similar question circulated recently in
net.invest about whether or not posting info that might affect someone's
stock purchases to the net may be construed as insider trading. A few
people seemed quite adamant that posting to the net did not constitute
public disclosure so, yes, it could be considered inside info and thus
make basing an investment decision illegal.

I don't know the intricacies of what is public and what is not and how
public a libelous statement has to be to be public (or how much wood
can a woodchuck chuck...) but we sure seem to live in a funny system
that none of us understand at all, too bad I guess. I wonder who it
*is* for????

	-Barry Shein, Boston University