I've pointed this:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/congress-passes-...
out to my employer's lawyers, who responded with "well, yes, but we'd still get sued, by Oracle, so... no."
Unfortunately, the law that protects reviewers does not protect people who publish benchmarks in software. These DeWitt clauses should be illegal in the United States on First Amendment grounds, but the problem is that to get software at all you have to agree to the license, and the licenses often have these nasty things. I think these Clauses should be straight up illegal, but very few people have enough money to pursue this in court.
While the consumer review protection law concerns individuals not companies (check the "form contract" definition), the license agreement seems to explicitly allow for individuals ("or as an individual"). There might be further license agreements after the download, but for that I'd agree to the terms of the license...
IANAL.
I'm not convinced that's generally true. The form contracts language [1] clearly talks about individuals, but at least one of the DB vendor license agreements allows for individuals. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888236
If an individual were to decide to do such a benchmark, I don't immediately see how the DeWitt clause would be still valid. Not many people are going to risk that obviously.
> hese DeWitt clauses should be illegal in the United States on First Amendment ground
I agree that they shouldn't be allowed, I however fail to see how 1A applies. You willingly enter into a contract with a private entity. That contract has rules, and there are some consequences for breaking them.
I think the government has an important, and imo somewhat neglected, role in providing rules around valid contracts, but that's not 1A.