there is no understanding needed, just playing to the fears of the shops. Fits hand in glove quite nicely.

In other words, the shops sign on the dotted line out of fear. Sounds like coercion to me.

To profit from the weakness of human nature is not illegal, merely an accelerant moving in the direction of the goal.

It may not be illegal, but it sure isn't very NEIGHBORLY!

On the other hand, if the choice is; either sign on the dotted line or else we will tell all your customers that you are not a preferred provider and that your shop takes too long and does shoddy work and charges too much, I think there might just be something illegal there.

Corporate free speech has to be truthful and I don't mean making statements like, "you might have warranty issues if you use that shop." or "we don't know how good there work is".

Because though truthful, comments like that cast aspersions.