Scummy companies trying to bypass Fair Use laws

Being able to create and publish independent third-party reviews of products made by some person or company is one of the most fundamental core features of the principle of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and is pretty much universally guaranteed with extremely strong protections in the vast majority if not all jurisdictions that operate under constitutional rights and freedoms. In many countries this right to review products is explicitly enshrined in law, in others it's a standard interpretation of the Constitution and consumer rights laws by courts.

The main goal of independent reviews of products being a strongly protected right is, of course, for the benefit of customers: Third-party reviews are a very important part of purchasing decision making, and most free countries guarantee and protect this. Consumers have the right to know the details of products they are thinking of purchasing, before purchasing them, and only independent third-parties are qualified to publish unbiased reviews that tell the actual truth.

Most companies are just fine with this. They understand that sometimes they will get negative reviews, but hey, that's life, and that's part of being in a working free society: If you put yourself out there, and start offering stuff for people to buy, expect people to express their opinions on it. Better try to do your best to earn a good reputation among your customers.

However, a few companies really hate negative reviews. If it wasn't for those pesky fair use laws that allow those reviews to be published...

Except that some of these companies don't care, and are completely shameless and unscrupulous. If they don't like a negative review they will do everything in their power to shut it down: They will send complaints to whatever publisher or platform where the review was published, to try to make them take it down. They will send threatening messages to the reviewer, threatening legal action.

And, if everything else fails, they will just outright sue such reviewers, clearly trying to intimidate individuals into removing the review because the prospect of going through a legal battle is too daunting.

Needless to say, these companies are the scum of the Earth.