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Posted By: davidcycle

Don't state your opinion as fact, state your opinion as your opinion. People are allowed to express their opinions. If you give what is clearly expressed as your opinion ("I think...," "It is my opinion...," "I don't know, but it seems to me..."), your statement as a whole is factually accurate in that it is indeed your opinion just as you say it is. The opinion itself may be dubious and you may later correct it, but no one's going to win in court trying to prove that it was not your opinion. If you don't know something as fact, don't state it as fact. If you don't know that a company committed fraud, don't say they did-- especially if it later turns out they didn't. Of course people are allowed to give their opinions and criticiz companies, products, practices and point out flaws.

While one should be prudent about what one says (in my opinion), if a company is evicted from its offices, its web site and telephone communications go down for a lengthy duration-- objective outsiders, including judges, will excuse a few conspiracy theories that came from the understandably nervous customers left in the dark.

Also libel requires that you know what you are stating is wrong. If you innocently get your facts mixed up, that's not libel.