> It basically means that a random person with enough resources can tie me down with a bogus lawsuit even if I have a legally-sound contract that is supposed to protect me.
yes, that's pretty much the state of things in the US. Anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason; granted if someone files for something stupid it will almost certainly be laughed out of court immediately, but you will still have to spend time and money defending yourself from it.
And this is in no way limited to companies. You can be sued for asking the guy behind you in line to talk into his cellphone quieter. That'll almost certainly be dismissed with prejudice, but you'll still need to either research the law yourself or contact a lawyer to deal with that idiot.
Somewhat. The person filing the lawsuit has to be able to convince a lawyer to pursue the case. In other words, that person needs to have money.
In a situation like this, people should be publicly shaming PeopleBrowser (people publicly shamed Twitter for going back on their API!), and I'm happy that the tone of the TechCrunch article at least portrayed PeopleBrowser in a negative light.
Where the legal system fails, social pressure is the next best option.
agreed. Honestly, I'd be more worried about a laywer than anyone else because the lawyer only needs to convince himself and is always willing to work this case pro bono.
"What we didn't know about <him> was that he was a retired lawyer, and which is one of the dangerous breeds of lawyer because they have nothing but time to crawl right up your ass"
-Stephen Colbert [1]
yes, that's pretty much the state of things in the US. Anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason; granted if someone files for something stupid it will almost certainly be laughed out of court immediately, but you will still have to spend time and money defending yourself from it.
And this is in no way limited to companies. You can be sued for asking the guy behind you in line to talk into his cellphone quieter. That'll almost certainly be dismissed with prejudice, but you'll still need to either research the law yourself or contact a lawyer to deal with that idiot.