A couple of weeks ago, the Guardian ran a story about an Australian food critic who had been successfully sued by a restaurant. The restaurant claimed that due to the critic’s negative review, it had lost business and been forced to close as a result; it argued that this constituted defamation.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened, either; there was a similar case in Belfast earlier this year.

Quite frankly, this situation seems pretty ridiculous. It may be that these cases are the end of this nonsense; but haven’t they set precedents now? Couldn’t anyone who feels his or her business has been harmed by a negative review sue the reviewers? (Or, more likely, whoever published said review?) Whether the product in question ever would have shifted many copies might turn out to be irrelevant, if manufacturers can manage to scare the critics with the legal system.

What does this have to do with IT? Well, lots. Sort of.

Any industry, IT included, has good bits and bad bits; without objective reviews, how are consumers ever to know the difference? Hewlett Packard recently admitted it was apprehensive about incorporating user reviews onto its product pages, in case customers gave their stuff bad reviews. All of this smacks of insecurity; or, worse, refusal to accept that a product is truly bad, choosing to utilise the fingers-in-ears tactic instead.

If it were possible to stop reviewers having their say about your products, doubtless lots of companies would do so, and anarchy would reign, with customers forced to rely on ever more uninterested computer shop staff for their info. But more realistically, considering that the Internet exist, could the voices of the critics ever be silenced?

Well … no. You just have to look at how well music piracy has been prevented to see that. Some companies might have a go, but they’d only shoot down the heads that peek the highest above the parapets; and eventually, it’ll become a fruitless exercise, or a court with some sense somewhere will rule that it’s silly.

Pity about that food critic, really. Especially if the food really was that bad.