gdt | Chilling effect of defamation on sharing equipment reviews (Reply)

Writing the slides for the IPv6 summit where I detail AARNet's IPv6 rollout. As part of that I tested a great deal of equipment and thought I'd share the results.

That's not going to happen, since it runs too great a risk of defamation. Our lawyer says that relying on a defence of truth isn't really practical. Even if I give the hardware and software versions tested (and what a drag that would be on a 30 minute presentation), those facts must imply the manufacturer's wider support for IPv6 and, arguably, that impression could be misleading.

There was a recent case where a restuarant review in a major newspaper was found to be defaminatory and this has considerably increased the risk of review-like activities.

Of course, you don't pay lawyers to tell you the law, you pay them to find a way through the law. So I'll be presenting test and evaluation criteria that listeners can run on equipment they intend to buy.