n a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that Network Associates can't prevent people from talking about its products.

New York state Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer issued a ruling, made public this week, prohibiting the security software specialist from trying to use its end-user license agreements to ban product reviews or benchmark tests.

The judge called the company's attempted ban "deceptive" because it implied consumers who conducted the reviews would be violating the law, when they would not. Shafer has not ruled on damages.