Spreadbury v. Bitterroot Public Library, 2012 WL 734163 (D. Montana, March 6, 2012) Plaintiff was upset at some local government officials, and ended up getting arrested for allegedly trespassing at the public library. Local newspapers covered the story, including on their websites. Some online commenters said mean things about plaintiff, so plaintiff sued a whole [...]
Archive for the ‘Defamation’ Category
Six interesting technology law issues raised in the Facebook IPO
February 1st, 2012
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Patent trolls, open source, do not track, SOPA, PIPA and much, much more: Facebook’s IPO filing has a real zoo of issues. The securities laws require that companies going public identify risk factors that could adversely affect the company’s stock. Facebook’s S-1 filing, which it sent to the SEC today, identified almost 40 such factors. [...]
Oregon media shield law did not protect blogger from having to reveal her sources
December 4th, 2011
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Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox, 2011 WL 5999334 (D.Or. November 30, 2011) Plaintiff filed a defamation lawsuit against defendant, who self-identified as an “investigative blogger” and a member of the “media.” Defendant asked the court to protect her from having to turn over the identity of the sources she spoke with in connection with [...]
Court protects identity of anonymous email sender
May 21st, 2011
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Sandals Resorts Intern. Ltd. v. Google, Inc., — N.Y.S.2d —, 2011 WL 1885939, (N.Y.A.D. 1 Dept., May 19, 2011) Some unknown person sent an email to a number of undisclosed recipients containing information that was critical of the hiring and other business practices of the Caribbean resort Sandals. Irritated by this communication, Sandals filed an [...]
Texas supreme court says identities of anonymous bloggers should not be disclosed
April 16th, 2011
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In re Does, — S.W.3d —, 2011 WL 1447544 (Texas, April 15, 2011) The issue of anonymity is a hot topic in internet law. The question of whether an internet user known only by an IP address or username or website name should be identified arises fairly often in the early stages of internet defamation [...]
Woman mistaken for Spitzer prostitute in Girls Gone Wild internet video awarded $3 million
March 13th, 2011
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Arpaio v. Dupre, 2011 WL 831964 (D.N.J., Mar 3, 2011) It has been three years since Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor of New York for getting busted for hooking up with a prostitute (time flies!). Shortly after he resigned, Girls Gone Wild offered Ashley Dupre, the high-priced prostitute Spitzer was accused of patronizing, a million [...]
Seventh Circuit: Website operator does not have to obey injunction in defamation case
December 28th, 2010
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Blockowicz v. Williams, No. 10-1167, (7th Cir. December 27, 2010) Plaintiffs got an injunction that ordered defendants to remove defamatory content from the web that defendants had posted. When the defendants did not comply with the injunction, plaintiffs asked the court to enforce the injunction against Ripoffreport.com, the website on which some of the defamatory [...]
Section 230 shields Google from liability for anonymous defamation
October 2nd, 2010
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Black v. Google Inc., 2010 WL 3746474 (N.D.Cal. September 20, 2010) Back in August, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against Google brought by two pro se plaintiffs, holding that the action was barred under the immunity provisions of 47 USC 230. That section says that “[n]o provider [...]
Yelp successful in defamation and deceptive acts and practices case
September 9th, 2010
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Reit v. Yelp, Inc., — N.Y.S.2d —, 2010 WL 3490167 (September 2, 2010) Section 230 of Communications Decency Act shielded site as interactive computer service; assertions regarding manipulation of reviews was not consumer oriented and therefore not actionable. As I am sure you know, Yelp! is an interactive website designed to allow the general public [...]
