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I have a question for anyone who has seen similar situations. (I'm 35+ years old and have never work at a corporation except for some small gigs when I was 18,

I have a question for anyone who has seen similar situations. (I'm 35+ years old and have never work at a corporation except for some small gigs when I was 18, so I'm really ignorant of how these companies and internal decision making work) Why in the world would a company sue a critic, under weak legal arguments, thus buying themselves this kind of terrible negative publicity? Who will trust/like/or want to be associated with them now? I guess that this is to suppress criticism, but it must be expensive and difficult to do the same in every jurisdiction in which critics pop up, so it looks like a dumb strategy (let alone immoral). I mean the guy seems to be educated and good citizen, works at a Uni, you can publicly read his views on twitter. THe kind of person I tend to sympathize with. Without knowing who Proctorio is, I imagine them being the kind of company I don't want to be associated with, just because of this. I don't understand.

atdrummond 5y ago
This actually seems pretty effective to me. I now know that if I criticize Proctorio, I am likely on the hook for six figures in legal fees. That alone would be enough to scare off many people who would otherwise feel inclined to critique the product/company. In fact, winning the case may not even be that important to the firm.
- helloguillecl 5y ago
  But for example in my home country, there's no way I could be sued for this. I mean I could, but if I was, the legal fees would likely need to be assumed by the entity making this kind of ridiculous lawsuit. There are too many like me, in different jurisdictions, who cannot be silenced like this. And I'm still in awe that a modern democracy like Canada, would allow their citizens to be threatened using their legal system. It seems corrupt.
- t0mas88 5y ago
  Sure, you could scare some others into not criticizing you. But this case is going to be mainstream news now, while before their case only a small number of people would have read the tweets. And I think losing this case could get very expensive if the defendant manages to convince the judge it's a SLAPP case?
  - anarazel 5y ago
    Anti-SLAPP statues aren't available everywhere in the US (nor I think I'm Canada). Importantly, there is none federally. Although sometimes state statutes can be used in federal court.
- indymike 5y ago
  >I now know that if I criticize Proctorio, I am likely on the hook for six figures in legal fees. This fact alone should shine a very bright spotlight on Proctorio and by proxy, the educational institutions that force students to install it on their computers.
pessimizer 5y ago
It's terrorism. You know that if they sued him, they would definitely sue you. He'll probably get his costs covered by donations in the end (after a lot of stress), but you won't. In that way they also create a floor of wealth and/or visibility for people to realistically qualify to criticize them. Those people are more likely to be investors than critics. It also proves to investors that they can defend themselves and are not risky.
mint2 5y ago
Backcountry is a generic term very commonly used in the outdoors community and features on numerous company names and products. The legal team of the online store backcountry decided they would sue any small company that had the generic term in their name. It’s almost like suing any ‘cafe’ with ‘cafe’ their name after you start a business called ‘cafe’. Except this is the type of corporate stoogery that much of the outdoors community particularly loathes. So yes the large outdoors company sicked corporate lawyers on small businesses who can’t afford legal fights to bully them into removing the very common outdoors term from their name. This caused a huge backlash and boycott and is why I still refuse to shop there and instead shop at rei and others. That incident shows how corporate decision makers can be completely out of touch with their customers, their market, and reality.
input_sh 5y ago
SLAPP suits (acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) are designed to shut up critics, plain and simple. They're not designed to be won, they're designed to be an annoyance to those that are being sued, dragged on as much as possible, and incur as many legal fees for the defendant as possible. The end goal is simply for other people's self-censorship to kick in. As in, when other people want to criticise Proctorio, there's a chance they're gonna stumble upon this lawsuit and decide against speaking up. Highly recommend this John Oliver video. In my opinion, it's the best one they've ever done with an absolutely magnificent ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU
arp242 5y ago
A lot of people will likely never have heard of this, and it's not like you or I as a student will have any choice in the matter anyway; it's not like we can choose to not use this software. And universities generally don't care. They have nothing to lose, except a comparatively small amount of money. Given that the CEO has previously gone on Reddit to bollock a student complaining and post part of the private support chat log, this may not necessarily be a rational decision. Sometimes just a single vindictive and nasty C-level person can set these things in motion.
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  After my years in the industry, I have to say that it at least feels like there's an overrepresentation of this in the CEO population. But I'm not sure whether that's statistically the case, or whether it's more because, as you say, a single vindictive and nasty C-level can set these things in motion without necessarily any checks and balances to stop it -- and that more over, it's really really visible and memorable when it happens.
  - arp242 5y ago
    To be honest in my experience a lot of people tend to be kind of vindictive. See some of the responses to the Linux bogus patch research for example, with people calling for things like "destroy their careers". That seems a bit overly vindictive to me; yes, they screwed up and yes, there should probably some consequences. But destroying the entire career of a 20-something? Sjeez... I've gotten death threats over email because ... reasons? These are of course entirely hollow threats, and it's easy to just shrug them off as "assholes internet crazies", but there's no reason you can't be crazy or an asshole and have a successful career. Add to this that a lot of these people put a lot of hard work in these kind of comparatively small businesses and that criticising the company feels like an attack on you ... and you end up with this. The difference, as you say, is that most of us aren't actually in a position to enact these kind of things. Maybe there's also some bias towards certain personality types, I don't know.

atdrummond 5y ago

This actually seems pretty effective to me. I now know that if I criticize Proctorio, I am likely on the hook for six figures in legal fees. That alone would be enough to scare off many people who would otherwise feel inclined to critique the product/company. In fact, winning the case may not even be that important to the firm.

helloguillecl 5y ago
But for example in my home country, there's no way I could be sued for this. I mean I could, but if I was, the legal fees would likely need to be assumed by the entity making this kind of ridiculous lawsuit. There are too many like me, in different jurisdictions, who cannot be silenced like this. And I'm still in awe that a modern democracy like Canada, would allow their citizens to be threatened using their legal system. It seems corrupt.
t0mas88 5y ago
Sure, you could scare some others into not criticizing you. But this case is going to be mainstream news now, while before their case only a small number of people would have read the tweets. And I think losing this case could get very expensive if the defendant manages to convince the judge it's a SLAPP case?
- anarazel 5y ago
  Anti-SLAPP statues aren't available everywhere in the US (nor I think I'm Canada). Importantly, there is none federally. Although sometimes state statutes can be used in federal court.
indymike 5y ago
>I now know that if I criticize Proctorio, I am likely on the hook for six figures in legal fees. This fact alone should shine a very bright spotlight on Proctorio and by proxy, the educational institutions that force students to install it on their computers.

pessimizer 5y ago

It's terrorism. You know that if they sued him, they would definitely sue you. He'll probably get his costs covered by donations in the end (after a lot of stress), but you won't. In that way they also create a floor of wealth and/or visibility for people to realistically qualify to criticize them. Those people are more likely to be investors than critics. It also proves to investors that they can defend themselves and are not risky.

mint2 5y ago

Backcountry is a generic term very commonly used in the outdoors community and features on numerous company names and products. The legal team of the online store backcountry decided they would sue any small company that had the generic term in their name. It’s almost like suing any ‘cafe’ with ‘cafe’ their name after you start a business called ‘cafe’. Except this is the type of corporate stoogery that much of the outdoors community particularly loathes. So yes the large outdoors company sicked corporate lawyers on small businesses who can’t afford legal fights to bully them into removing the very common outdoors term from their name. This caused a huge backlash and boycott and is why I still refuse to shop there and instead shop at rei and others. That incident shows how corporate decision makers can be completely out of touch with their customers, their market, and reality.

input_sh 5y ago

SLAPP suits (acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) are designed to shut up critics, plain and simple. They're not designed to be won, they're designed to be an annoyance to those that are being sued, dragged on as much as possible, and incur as many legal fees for the defendant as possible. The end goal is simply for other people's self-censorship to kick in. As in, when other people want to criticise Proctorio, there's a chance they're gonna stumble upon this lawsuit and decide against speaking up. Highly recommend this John Oliver video. In my opinion, it's the best one they've ever done with an absolutely magnificent ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU

arp242 5y ago

A lot of people will likely never have heard of this, and it's not like you or I as a student will have any choice in the matter anyway; it's not like we can choose to not use this software. And universities generally don't care. They have nothing to lose, except a comparatively small amount of money. Given that the CEO has previously gone on Reddit to bollock a student complaining and post part of the private support chat log, this may not necessarily be a rational decision. Sometimes just a single vindictive and nasty C-level person can set these things in motion.

yowlingcat 5y ago
After my years in the industry, I have to say that it at least feels like there's an overrepresentation of this in the CEO population. But I'm not sure whether that's statistically the case, or whether it's more because, as you say, a single vindictive and nasty C-level can set these things in motion without necessarily any checks and balances to stop it -- and that more over, it's really really visible and memorable when it happens.
- arp242 5y ago
  To be honest in my experience a lot of people tend to be kind of vindictive. See some of the responses to the Linux bogus patch research for example, with people calling for things like "destroy their careers". That seems a bit overly vindictive to me; yes, they screwed up and yes, there should probably some consequences. But destroying the entire career of a 20-something? Sjeez... I've gotten death threats over email because ... reasons? These are of course entirely hollow threats, and it's easy to just shrug them off as "assholes internet crazies", but there's no reason you can't be crazy or an asshole and have a successful career. Add to this that a lot of these people put a lot of hard work in these kind of comparatively small businesses and that criticising the company feels like an attack on you ... and you end up with this. The difference, as you say, is that most of us aren't actually in a position to enact these kind of things. Maybe there's also some bias towards certain personality types, I don't know.