A nutritional supplements firm is demanding a federal judge to order the disclosure of commenters "leaving phony negative reviews" on the Amazon.com marketplace.

Ubervita sells testosterone boosters, multivitamins, and weight loss supplements, and now the company wants a Washington state federal judge to order Amazon.com to cough up the identities of those behind a "campaign of dirty tricks against Ubervita in a wrongful effort to put Ubervita at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace" (PDF). The demands from the Washington state firm broach two competing interests: the right to comment anonymously online and the right to protect against unfair business practices. Where that line is drawn is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Consider two recent examples.

In March, a router company that threatened to sue a redditor unless he deleted a negative comment from Amazon.com lost its selling privileges on Amazon.com. And just last month, a federal judge ordered KlearGear to pay $306,750 to a Utah couple that left a bad review over an undelivered $20 order, prompting legal threats from KlearGear that resulted in the couple prevailing in court and winning punitive damages.

But the Ubervita affair is much more complex. If its allegations are true, they seemingly highlight a complex plot to disrupt the supplement company's business.

According to the firm's Monday lawsuit, Ubervita claims that the unknown commenters placed fraudulent orders "to disrupt Ubervita's inventory," posted a Craigslist ad "to offer cash for favorable reviews of Ubervita products," and posed "as dissatisfied Ubervita customers in posting phony negative reviews of Ubervita products, in part based on the false claim that Ubervita pays for positive reviews."

Among other allegations, the company claims that the people they are seeking to unmask sent e-mails to Amazon, under the Ubervita name, to allege that they were "selling counterfeit goods."

"Each time, Amazon responded to the false complaints by suspending the sale of genuine Ubervita products—rendering them unavailable for purchase," the suit said.

The firm said the people the company wants identified undertook a self-perpetuating commenting scam of sorts:

For months, Defendants have tarnished Ubervita’s reputation by posing as legitimate consumers of Ubervita’s products and leaving phony negative reviews of such products on Amazon.com. In ostensible support for such reviews, Defendants make frequent untrue statements of fact about Ubervita and its products, including by falsely accusing Ubervita of publishing fraudulent positive reviews of its products and/or of selling “fake” products. For example, some of Defendants’ reviews refer to Ubervita as a being a "scam," state that Ubervita’s products are “placebos,” and claim that Ubervita pays for five-star (the best possible) product reviews. None of those statements of fact is true. Because Defendants repeat their false statements many times, and quote false statements made by other Defendants, they make it appear as though their false reviews reflect a growing body of unsatisfied customers."

No decision on the subpoena (PDF) has been made as of Tuesday.