No criticism allowed

I've discovered an interesting trick. Once you find a particularly ridiculous piece of text in an online agreement, you can do a web search to see who else has used the same boilerplate. In the present case, I found one site whose terms of service try to prevent you from criticizing it, and then found lots more.

Things started with Zazzle, where I was thinking of buying some merchandise offered by the libertarian cartoonist Baloo. Zazzle's user agreement says:

You acknowledge and agree that you will not use any product or stamp ordered from the Site in a way that would be damaging to Zazzle's public reputation or that of its employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners. Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product or stamp ordered from Zazzle, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Zazzle, Zazzle's board members, employees, shareholders or partners, or the United States Postal Service.

So let's say you buy a Zazzle product and it falls apart within a week for no good reason. You decide to review it, and you want to include a picture of the remains as proof. You've agreed you can't include that picture. Even if your point is that the Post Office destroyed it, you can't include the picture, since you've agreed you can't disparage the US Post Awful either.

I decided not to order. Anyone who's trying to suppress negative reviews isn't a trustworthy vendor in my eyes.

But Zazzle isn't the only one that does this. imagekind.com has similar language:

You acknowledge and agree that you will not use any product ordered from Imagekind.com in a way that would be damaging to Imagekind's public reputation or that of its employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners. Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product ordered from Imagekind in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Imagekind, Imagekind's board members, employees, shareholders or partners, Imagekind reserves the right to demand immediate return of the product Imagekind's sole and exclusive obligation and your sole and exclusive remedy shall be a full refund of all fees paid by you.

At least they let you blast the Post Office if it ruined your package!

Or take fotodesk.com:

Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product ordered from FotoDesk in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages FotoDesk, its board members, employees, shareholders, or partners, FotoDesk reserves the right to demand immediate return of the product. FotoDesk's sole and exclusive obligation and your sole and exclusive remedy shall be a full refund of all fee paid by you.

Likewise "if you choose to display any product ordered from Threadsmith, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Threadsmith"...

Or "if you choose to display premium question results obtained from Predictify in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Predictify"...

Or maybe you're using italyshoppe.com and thinking you might "choose to display any product ordered from Landon Taylor Design Group in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Landon Taylor Design Group"...

Or you're planning to "display any product ordered from the Site or from Babe Domain's affiliate partners, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Babe Domain"...

... various bad consequences are specified, from demands that you return the merchandise to vague threats of legal action.

This doesn't stop people from giving negative reviews, of course, just from presenting the evidence graphically. I wonder if any of the operators of these sites have thought about the amount of bad publicity they'd get if they tried to enforce those clauses.