You've probably seen infomercials for the Video Professor on late-night TV; a kindly-looking John Scherer has been pitching his company's computer training videos for two decades now. But Video Professor, Inc. has no problem using less-friendly tactics when confronted with criticism, and the company is now suing more than 100 anonymous Internet posters over derogatory comments that they made about Video Professor's business.

The Denver Post noticed the case a few days back, and it's certainly an odd one. Video Professor filed a federal claim in a Colorado court against 100 "John and Jane Does" who committed "unauthorized Internet disparagement of VPI and its products" on web sites such as infomercialscams.com (the site, incidentally, is the number three Google result for "video professor").

The complaints generally follow a similar theme: Video Professor allegedly markets products as free to try, then pitches callers with upsells that confuse them into signing up for subscriptions. A recent comment from "Tina" is typical. "I had purchased one piece of software from Video Professor... before I knew what was happening, my credit card was overdrawn and more attempted charges were constantly occurring. I kept calling customer service, returned the original software and heard many promises of the 100 percent refund, less S/H. This has been over 3 years now."

Oddly enough, the Video Professor contacted the owner of the site back in July and told him that they wanted the full contact information for all concerned parties in order to address them individually and continue "providing superior customer service." Now, two months later, the company has sued the anonymous individuals in question and is trying to enforce a subpoena against infomercialscams.com in order to get IP addresses about posters. Those posters are being charged with commercial disparagement, false advertising, misrepresentation, and posting false and defamatory messages. That's certainly the sort of superior customer service we'd all like more of.

Unfortunately for Video Professor, it can't sue the site operators directly (although it would really, really like to). The Communications Decency Act gives such sites a "safe harbor" against prosecution based on user posts, so Video Professor is forced instead to individually pursue each person that made a disparaging remark.

The company's federal complaint is a strange read, since it does not identify even a single false and defamatory statement; it simply asserts the existence of such statements somewhere on Teh Interwebs. Despite that, the company was able to obtain a subpoena to obtain the information it is seeking.

Infomercialscams.com is being represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, DC. Paul Levy, one of the group's lawyers, late last week sent a strongly-worded letter (PDF) to Video Professor that outlined the perceived problems with the subpoena. Chief among them is the fact that anonymous, critical speech is generally protected by the First Amendment, and the threshold for unveiling anonymous posters is high.

Despite that, Levy notes that the good doctor's lawyers can't simply assert that 100 unknown individuals posted false and defamatory messages. For one thing, the particular messages in question need to be identified (the complaint does not even indicate which posts it refers to). Within those posts, actual false claims need to be mentioned (none are). Further, it's unlikely that each alleged offender is exactly guilty of the same transgression, so the company needs to offer evidence for each particular case.

Due to the extreme generality of the complaint and subpoena, Levy asks, "Is it Video Professor's position that any former customer who criticizes its conduct must necessarily be making false statements, and hence is subject to sued for libel? Certainly you have given no evidentiary reason to believe that any of the statements about Video Professor are false."

The company is no stranger to the courtroom. A search shows that Video Professor has filed four separate federal lawsuits in 2007 alone. In one of these Video Professor sued a rival seller of computer training products who included a link on his site to other sites critical of Professor practices.

In the last three years, the company has racked up 615 Better Business Bureau complaints, though all appear to have been quickly addressed.

The company is certainly serious about the newest case. Founder John Scherer told the Denver Post, "I personally do not believe that you can be anonymous and bash people and get away with it under the First Amendment. I will stay with this case, and I will get the names that I am requesting. I will pursue this until the Supreme Court tells me I can't get them."

Fortunately, federal courts rule based on US law and not the personal beliefs of the litigants.