A new California state law just signed by Gov. Jerry Brown makes reviews a lot safer for patients, and prevents medical spas or cosmetic practices from pursuing any legal action against patients who post negative reviews online.

This legislation is the first of it's kind and addresses so-called "disparagement clauses" that are sometimes used in a clinics patient forms that prohibit patients from posting negative comments about the services, staff, clinic or physician.

This new law effectively bans such clauses and any clinic that tries to enforce one could pay $2,500 for the first offense and $5,000 each additional time, with an extra $10k tacked on if the action is considered "willful, intentional, or reckless".

The First Amendment is only in the US of course, France is a different story. In July a French blogger was fined because her negative review of a restaurant was appearing too high in Google's search.

If you're in California, not only is any non-disparagement clause uninforcable, it's now illegal.

Here's the copy from the bill: