A US ham radio software developer has admitted a support staffer disabled a customer's copy of its application after he posted a negative review online.

Jm Giercyk, N2SUB of South Carolina had applied a software fix that caused his software to become faulty and stop working. 

During a discussion with support staff, the log shows “is copy had been disabled remotely in response to a negative online review he had posted in September.”

Giercyk was advised that if he removed the negative product review, his licence would be reinstated. A recent US law forbids companies taking retribution against consumers posting negative reviews.

The negative review was in relation to a compatibility issue between Microsoft Windows 10, Office and HamRadioDeluxe where a complicated registry hack was required to make the function work. Giercyk claims that the software vendor should issue a software hotfix to resolve the issue.

Dr Michael Carper, a co-owner of HamRadioDeluxe admitted that a support staffer had disabled a customer's software key in response to the poor review.

"This does not reflect the policies or procedures of our company. But it was said. It was a mistake," he said. 

HRD Response - https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/5iwu0i/ham_radio_deluxe_released_a_statement/