Doctors To Patients: First, Do No Yelp Harm

theodp writes "When he walked into the dentist's office, Ars Technica's Timothy B. Lee was looking for cleaner teeth, but was shown the door after expressing outrage at being asked to first sign a 'mutual privacy agreement' calling for him to transfer ownership of any public commentary he might write in the future about his experience to the good doctor. Lee reports that similar censorious copyright agreements are popping up in doctors' offices across the country. 'Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews,' writes Lee, but 'censoring patients is the wrong way for doctors to deal with online criticism.'"

Re:It's called "Being Fair"!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chiropractors have no medical basis and can quite easily injure someone. It is classed as a new age medicine and has been shown to be dangerous by P&T Bullshit.

Re:Streisand Effect

[ElectricTurtle]

Then no NDA would ever work. You can contractually waive certain rights within limits defined therein. It's not so much 'taking away' as 'voluntarily waiving'. Duress itself invalidates a contract. IANAL etc.

Re:Streisand Effect

[mr1911]

The Constitution says the government cannot infringe on your right to free speech. You can certainly enter into a contract to limit your speech. That is exactly what Non Disclosure Agreements are.

Re:It's called "Being Fair"!

[Anonymous Coward]

Deaths and paralysis [whatstheharm.net] That's just from a quick google for "chiropractic harm", there are MANY MANY more.

Re:Streisand Effect

[ZamesC]

It's more than just NDA. Pretty much all writers (Magazine, newspaper, Ad copywriter etc) sign over their copyright to their employers. That's pretty much what the contract is asking. A key difference is that the writers are being paid, while the doctor is merely offering to perform a service (for which the patient still has to pay)