Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, one of the most important aspects of an efficient market is the free flow of information to consumers. The Internet has added hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy, and much of this is due to the ready access that it affords consumers and businesses access to information. Government officials spend a lot of time worrying about how to ensure that the independent information sources about product and service qualities are available. So the truly great thing about consumer reviews is that, as long as they are reliable sources of information, they are made available at no cost to the consumer or to the taxpayer. {time} 1715 But this benefit is in trouble if we allow businesses to prevent information from ever becoming public. Many of us might hesitate before we give that negative review. Others might be eager to let everyone know just how bad their brunch was, but it probably never crosses anyone's mind that they could be fined if they tell the truth. After all, Americans are used to our freedom of speech. In one extreme example brought to us by TripAdvisor, travelers were subjected to a $5 million fine if any ``actual opinions and/or publications are created which, at the sole opinion of the businessowner tends directly to injure him in respect to his trade or business . . .…”