Aaron Wall, a great and bright 25 yr. old mind in the internet marketing world, and creator of the really comprehensive and insightful "Seo Book" (an e-book on internet marketing) has been sued in a civil lawsuit after ignoring a Cease/Desist and probably other legal actions and warnings by the company "TrafficPower" he posted critics and user-experiences from.

TP claims that he published "Trade Secrets" – probably just insights of burned customers that posted a couple of angry comments on his weblog…

People often refer to Free Speech in the United States… but this is a law only protecting the people from the governments force… not other businesses trying to protect their work, "trade secrets" or just reputation.

This is a closely watched case, as it seems to get quite common to silence critics and bad comments on a company's service quality not by improving their products, service and quality control, but just by silencing their competitors or just pissed-off clients that write about their hassles.

I have seen a couple of such legal threats claimed in various faces in the past – all very obviously just with the intention of letting the big pocket win over the small pocket guy.

• Trademark & Copyright violation claims (DMCA complaints) against criticism
• Trade Secret publication claims against criticism
• Libel claims against criticism

The case has brought up a wave of attention on major media:

• Wall Street Journal: Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers
• SlashDot on the lawsuit
• SEW Forums

Update 9/6 – more coverage, compiled and copied from Todd on Seobook vs 1P