A Florida company selling an obesity product is suing a consumer website for hosting negative reviews of its dietary product. Roca Labs wants the US courts to award it in "excess" of $1 million in addition to blocking pissedconsumer.com from continuing the practice.

The lawyer for the New York-based online review site told Ars on Monday that the lawsuit [PDF] was "bunk," that its demands amount to a prior restraint of speech, and that the site itself is protected from defamation charges under the Communications Decency Act because it hosts the online review forum for others to use.

Further Reading US law would safeguard free-speech rights to criticize business online

Roca Labs, on the other hand, maintains that the website is facilitating a breach of contract with their diet customers. Roca's customers consented, as part of their agreement when purchasing the Gastric Bypass Alternative, that "regardless of their outcome, they will not speak, publish, print, blog, or write negatively about Roca or its products in any forum."

The company goes on to say that the pissedconsumer.com site and its operators "deliberately and tortuously interfere with Roca Lab's customers by encouraging them to breach their customer agreement with Roca as Defendants author or co-author false, malicious, and negative posts about Roca that are published on their subject website and Tweeted to Twitter's 271 million users."

In its lawsuit, Roca notes that it provides upwards of an $800 discount to people who agree to the non-disparagement clause.

A hearing in the case, originally filed in Florida state court but transferred to federal court, is set for October 8.

Randazza filed his response [PDF] to Roca's claims on Thursday, days after a member of the House of Representatives offered legislation that would make it illegal for businesses to take action against consumers who write "honest" negative reviews online about products and services. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said the measure would make it illegal for companies to have non-disparagement clauses in their consumer contracts.

"It's un-American that any consumer would be penalized for writing an honest review," Swalwell said. "I'm introducing this legislation to put a stop to this egregious behavior so people can share honest reviews without fear of litigation."

Swalwell's Consumer Review Freedom Act came a week after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a similar law in California that includes a $10,000 fine against companies that violate the so-called "Yelp bill." Swalwell's law, if passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama, would function nationwide.

Randazza said in his filing that "Roca Labs is desperately trying to force a cone of silence over each and every customer that discovers that Roca Labs' product is not only a specious remedy for their weight issues, but a potential cause of additional health problems. Plaintiff, desperate to sell as many of its tubs of goo to the public as it can before regulatory agencies come knocking, does its best to bully its former customers into silence."

The Better Business Bureau has given the company an "F" rating, with 73 complaints the last three years.

In order, Pissedconsumer.com ranks the "most complained about companies" as Walmart, Pizza Hut, Fedex, UPS and Avas Flowers.