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Re: Fraud and free speech
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In <v03102804afc0fc8e1db0@[207.167.93.63]>, on 06/08/97
at 05:27 PM, Tim May <[email protected]> said:
>At 4:14 PM -0700 6/8/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>>Well I would have to dissagre. Advertisements should be covered under
>>contract law as verbal contracts. If I advertise that "X" does "Y" but it
>>really does "Z" then this is clearly fraudulent behavior.
>When I was growing up, advertisements that a product would make one
>attractive to women, for example, were treated as marketing jive. And we
>were all taught the old saw, "If Johhny told you to jump off a cliff,
>would you?" (This along with "sticks and stones" formed the basis of my
>proto-libertarian view.)
>An advertisement is a tease, not a promise. If a advertisement for a
>Pentium says it will run Macintosh software and run it at 600 Mhz, the
>proper response is skepticism, not demanding a law be passed to stop such
>advertisements.
>The key lies in proper contracts, not in regulating speech.
>(Oh, and it almost goes without saying that the same "lies" William and
>others are so worried about in "commercial" speech happen all the time in
>non-commerical speech. For every example of where commercial speech
>involves lies or fraud, I can find similar or fully equivalent
>non-commercial examples, ranging from lies like "I love you" to get a
>partner into bed to deliberate misstatements to mislead an opponent. Why
>should such "lies" be protected while putatively commercial speech is to
>be subjected to an increasing number of limitations?)
So what you are saying that if I call up Widgits, Inc. and order product
"X" that they advertizes does "Y". They instead send me product "X" that
does "Z" not "Y" then I should have no recource? I should atleast be able
to get my money back as they have not sold me the product that they
claimed to be selling (clear violation of the "contract" between buyer and
seller).
I have no problem with them saying their product does "Y" but if I spend
my hard earned money on it then it best do what they say it does.
- --
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William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0
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