Members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation that would ban penalties for negative online reviews in all states, just days after California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new state law outlawing the practice of using non-disparagement clauses to penalize consumers who complain, The Consumerist reported on Wednesday.
The Consumer Review Freedom Act was introduced this week by Reps. Eric Swalwell and Brad Sherman, both from California. Its aim is to "prohibit contracts that prohibit consumers from making certain public comments on businesses."
The bill addresses clauses in contracts or terms of sale that restrict a "person's written, verbal, or pictorial review, performance assessment of, or other similar analysis of, the products, services, or conduct of a business."
"No country that values free speech would allow customers to be penalized for writing an honest review," said Swalwell in a statement on Tuesday. "I introduced this legislation to put a stop to this egregious behavior so people can share honest reviews without fear of litigation."
The proposed law and the California bill are a response to recent incidents in which online retailers have tried to impose fines on customers for violating non-disparagement clauses.
A KlearGear.com customer was recently awarded $306,000 in damages because the online retailer attempted to levy her with a $3,500 fine for allegedly violating the site's non-disparagement clause, which the customer says she never agreed to, and which was not in the terms of sale on the site's checkout page, but on a separate page on KlearGear.com.
