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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

That is absolutely insane, this "unlawful" review is as informative and objective as it gets:

https://sleepopolis.com/mattress-reviews/tuft-and-needle-vs-...

You shouldn't be able to sue someone for writing a review, this reeks of violating one's First Amendment rights.

Reading the complaint (https://sleepopolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/caspers-a...) it looks like Casper is suing them for not disclosing their referral links are referral links whilst alleging that they steer people away from products they don't get good referrals on.

I have no idea about the basis or any of the details but it's not just "wrote review, got sued".

Here's a review from just before the first complaint. It doesn't seem to mention any affiliate money.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160427113129/http://sleepopoli...

So, that might be a relevant complaint.

I'm not sure why, now the site has the needed disclosures, it's okay for Casper to keep up the lawsuit.

At the very bottom: If you use one of my links and purchase a mattress or other product you should know that the respective companies pay me a small referral fee.

Damages don't need to be ongoing to have standing, and damages in the past are still damages. The case isn't mooted by rectifying the situation that was causing harm unless it ameliorates the financial harms caused.

How can you possibly assess damages for this without knowing how many customers were lost because they were swayed into buying other mattresses because of the review?

The linked review in question even strongly favors the Casper over the competing Tuft & Needle mattress.

>You shouldn't be able to sue someone for writing a review

You can sue anyone for anything.

They said you "shouldn't" be able to. Being able to sue for anything becomes effective censorship by those with the deepest pockets.

>Being able to sue for anything becomes effective censorship by those with the deepest pockets.

You've misunderstood both my post and the post I was replying to. I know what they said, and I agree that the pay-to-play American legal system needs to be reworked. They were talking about stopping a specific kind of lawsuit, not all lawsuits that you'd consider "censorship".

Nothing was misunderstood. They want lawsuits for reviews stopped - lawsuits for reviews by the offended party, with deep pockets, is effectivly censorship - they can control the message. The poster never implied they can or cannot be sued - just that they shouldn't. Opinion vs fact.

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