Video Professer, the company that makes the computer learning CDs oft-pitched on television by fatherly tech supremo John Scherer, is after 100 unnamed Does that criticized it or its products.
The federal complaint doesn't identify any specific statements that it objects to, or even what it claims is "commercial disparagement, false advertising, misrepresentation," or otherwise defamatory. It instead subpoenas for the IP addresses of users at informercialscams.com, a site at which people may anonymously complain about informercial scams.
This blanket campaign against what it calls "unauthorized Internet disparagement" is similar in its execution to how record companies fish for suspected pirates. Why does it want this information? In order to "address them individually" and to continue "providing superior customer service."
With no actual offenses identified other than the general disparaging evil of Internet, it all sounds a bit like the rambling legal threats people throw at one another in web forums. This, however, was filed by real lawyers and everything, so it's doubtless that the first amendment isn't relevant to this particular case.
Video Professor Upset [Ars]
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