FTC: 'Roca Labs Has An Adversarial Relationship With The Truth'; Suggests Plans To Crack Down On More Gag Clauses

from the good-news dept

Tue, Sep 29th 2015 1:27pm — Mike Masnick

Roca Labs threatened to sue us here at Techdirt twice for publishing accurate articles about the company, its sketchy practices and legal threats -- and especially for its ridiculous "gag clause" that told customers they could never say disparaging things about the product online. Among other things, Roca Labs threatened others for claiming its products were "snake oil" and us for merely repeating statements that were in court filings. So we were certainly pleased last week when the FTC finally took Roca Labs to court, for both deceptive and misleading advertising and over the gag clause itself.

On Monday, the FTC put out a blog post about this where it went into more detail about why it was targeting Roca Labs:

“Roca Labs had an adversarial relationship with the truth,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Not only did they make false or unsubstantiated weight-loss claims, they also attempted to intimidate their own customers from sharing truthful – and truly negative – reviews of their products.”

I can't wait to see Roca Labs' "Independent General Counsel" Paul Berger now try to threaten the FTC with one of his standard "You're defaming us!" letters.

In the meantime, though, there is a more important element in all of this, which is that this is the first time we've seen the FTC go after these gag clauses. We've been writing about such gag clauses for many years, going back to a dentist who billed someone $100 per day for a negative review. Then there was the infamous KlearGear case, where the online retailer demanded $3,500 for a negative review (from a non-customer!).

A year ago, we had a post highlighting a bunch of these kinds of gag clauses from a variety of different companies. California passed a state law outlawing such non-disparagement clauses, and a federal bill was introduced earlier this year -- though it has gone nowhere.

But the fact that the FTC directly called out the practice suggests that, while we wait for Congress to get its act together, the FTC may be willing to go after the more egregious providers of such clauses.

In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Roca Labs, Inc.; Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.; and their principals have sued and threatened to sue consumers who shared their negative experiences online or complained to the Better Business Bureau, stating that the consumers violated the non-disparagement provisions of the “Terms and Conditions” they supposedly agreed to when they bought the products. The FTC alleges that these gag clause provisions, and the defendants’ related warnings, threats, and lawsuits, harm consumers by unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful, negative comments about the defendants and their products.

A full law would be nice to have, but in the meantime, having the FTC step in seems like a useful tool to stop these gag clauses from silencing consumers.

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Filed Under: ftc, gag clause, non-disparagement clauses
Companies: roca labs

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2015 @ 1:35pm

Paging Jack Nicholson...
...“Roca Labs had an adversarial relationship with the truth,”...

You can't handle the truth!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2015 @ 1:40pm

Amazing. A snake oil seller has problems with being called a snake oil seller. Damned if the truth don't hurt.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2015 @ 1:51pm

Re:
So your suggesting that it should be a painful adversarial relationship with the truth?
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DB (profile), 29 Sep 2015 @ 4:04pm

I like the phrase.

It sounds like an hyperbole, but it is actually an accurate description of the situation.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2015 @ 4:50pm

Slow news day?

Same FTC filing as the other day. Someone simply found another phrase worth quoting?

Ah, no, wait. This is about a blog post about the court filing. Much better.
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That One Guy (profile), 29 Sep 2015 @ 9:33pm

That's gotta sting
When someone acting as representative of a government agency publicly claims that you/your company has an 'Adversarial relationship with truth'... just ouch. They could have said that Roca had a habit of lying, or being dishonest, but no, they went the extra mile and went with the eloquent burn.
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That One Guy (profile), 29 Sep 2015 @ 9:41pm

Re:
Since you apparently missed it, the important bit mentioned in this article wasn't the FTC pointing out Roca's habits of lying, it's the fact that they mentioned the gag clause Roca had, something that the FTC hadn't paid nearly enough attention to before.

Slamming Roca's all well and good, as they've more than earned it, but having the FTC start paying attention to gag clauses, whether Roca's or otherwise is much more important in the long-term.
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DB (profile), 29 Sep 2015 @ 9:52pm

It's worth mentioning again: it's not just that Roca lies in their advertisements, it's that they legally persecute those that want to tell the truth about Roca's products or their business practices. The latter is the major part of their "adversarial relationship" with the truth.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2015 @ 9:53pm

Re:
Slow commenting day?
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Klaus, 30 Sep 2015 @ 2:04am

Re: That's gotta sting
I read Mike's post and thought yay, and then whilst mentally mashing the words of Yamamoto's "a sleeping giant is stirring, filled with resolve" I noticed that the quote "Roca Labs had an adversarial relationship with the truth" was by a Jessica Rich, and then, (obviously) Googled her, and I must say was quite overcome by the results...
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2015 @ 6:08am

perhaps it would be a wise move on the part of the FTC to open it's damn eyes and look at more than just ROCA. it knows full well what is going on and which companies are doing the same thing, but because it involves doing some work for a change, instead of just sitting around letting people get ripped off, it ignores it!
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