Blog Faces Lawsuit Over Reader Comments 364
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "In a legal case being watched closely by bloggers, an Internet company has sued the owner of a blog for comments posted to his site by readers, the Wall Street Journal Online reports. Traffic-Power.com, which sells tools for boosting Web traffic, sued Aaron Wall, age 25, over statements posted in the comments section of Wall's search-engine-optimization blog, SEOBook.com. (Wall also has posted about the case.) 'Legal analysts said the case falls into somewhat murky legal territory, but that Mr. Wall may have some protection from liability under federal law,' WSJ.com says. 'Courts generally have held that the operators of computer message boards and mailing lists cannot be held liable for statements posted by other people. Blogs might be viewed in a similar light, they said.' However, Daniel Perry, a lawyer who has followed the case, says that Wall's case is complicated by his own negative comments about Traffic-Power, which could be seen as a competitor to his site. 'To be candid, he sort of moved into this moving propeller,' Perry said. 'The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.'"
Text of the lawsuit (Score:2, Informative)
14. At unknown date or dates, Doe I, alone or in concert with Does I through X, began disseminating Plaintiff's trade secrets to the public, with such information now available on various web sites. Among other things, Defendant or Defendants posted proprietary relating to Plaintiff's solicitation, procedures on publicly accessible areas of the internet.
Re:Sure, now even less blogs with readership (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I wondered this as I blasted a business... (Score:3, Informative)
I think people take slander, libel, and general censorship too seriously. Just remember that freedom of speech/expression of ideas is just an illusion in America. So watch your back.
Re:I wondered this as I blasted a business... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.scionlife.com/dealers/romano_scion [scionlife.com]
The Law is Not So "Murky" Here: See CDA sec. 230 (Score:5, Informative)
The Communications Decency Act, sec. 230(c)(1) says,
And, in sect. 230 (f)(3),Why a blog with comments would be treated differently from, say, a BBS or a chat room escapes me. And I teach this stuff for a living. So much for the defamation claims.The trade secret claim is a little harder. It's probably the case that Congress didn't have trade secrets in mind when it wrote sec. 230. On the other hand, if you read the full text [findlaw.com] of sec. 230 you will see that Congress intended fairly broad protection; in sec. 230(f)(3) it certainly wrote in very broad terms. In law there are few certainties until after a court rules, but I think the balance here points towards a finding of non-liability both on CDA grounds and traditional trade secret grounds (where innocent receivers of information, and especially journalists who receive information, are not usually liable).
Not the nicest SEO company (Score:5, Informative)
Reminds me a bit of a certan guy at SCO...
For something to be libel (Score:5, Informative)
1) The statements you make must be false statements. Truth is the ultimate defence against a libel suit. No matter how bad something is that you say, if it's true, it's not libel.
2) You had to know the statements were false. If you believed you were making true statements, that is also a defence against libel. Of course that's a little harder to prove, gets in to he-said, she-said to try and prove if you knew or not.
3) The statements had to be made with the intent to cause harm. If they were made as a joke, it's not libel. Again, gets in to an argument of if you really intended to cause harm.
So, if your statements are true, and provably so, you are fine. If not it gets a little more unclear.
Now please note, they could still sue you, even if their suit had no merit. That shit happens ALL the time. Even if everything you said was true you could still be sued. Doesn't mean you'd be liable for anything if you defended yourself, but you'd still have to defend yourself.
Re:Power of the pulpit (Score:3, Informative)
Possibly. [slashdot.org] But I doubt it.
You do know the difference between a negative comment and libel, don't you?
libel: [answers.com]
1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
2. The act of presenting such material to the public.
Traffic power banned by google... (Score:2, Informative)
One of the things they do is create link farms to customer sites. A link farm is a bogus website with nothing but links to that website in an attempt to increase search ranking. This is why traffic power (and many of its customers) have been banned by google.
Re:So it's not legal to criticize shitty products. (Score:1, Informative)
They've already been sued several times, most notably by Suzuki for their claims that the Suzuki Samurai was dangerous and prone to roll-over accidents. The case eventually got dismissed without any monetary compensation or public apology or retraction but unfortunately since the case was dismissed rather than a ruling issued for CU there is still no explicit standard.
Never thought you'd be grateful for the CDA, hmm? (Score:3, Informative)
In response to the uproar by ISPs and online hosts over this case, the U.S. Congress enacted a safe harbor for service providers, ironically into the roundly criticized Communications Decency Act. While most of the CDA was found unconstitutional, the safe harbor remains (at 47 U.S.C. 230 [cornell.edu], and has been used by a number of major ISPs (including AOL in a case involving a Matt Drudge story) over the years.
This case will likely come down to whether a blog creator is a service provider as defined by the law and the cases that have interpreted it. What makes it interesting is that allowing public comments to a blog really falls somewhere in the spectrum between hosting a message board and publishing letters to the editor, depending on issues of control and other factors.
A few other thoughts. First, regarding those Slashdotters who have marveled at the U.S.-centric views on Internet law, it's really the European Union (through its data protection and VAT laws among others) that has sought to project its legal structure regarding the Internet to others around the globe. Also, as it happens, libel via the Internet has generated major new jurisdictional questions, as the libelers have been brought to trial in foreign countries whose libel laws are much more pro-plaintiff than those of the alleged libeler's home country. (Take a look at the Dow Jones v. Gutnick [ojr.org] case for just one example of this.)
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Prof. Jonathan I. Ezor [mailto]
Assistant Professor of Law and Technology
Director, Institute for Business, Law and Technology (IBLT)
Touro Law Center
Co-Author, TechLawProf Blog [typepad.com]
Re:Freedom of speech comes with responsibility. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a defined legal concept known as "The Common Man" that Common Law countries use. I am specifically aware of the concept in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Loosely put, the definition is "if the common man would not find that to be a reasonable action, you loose". For example, going swimming in a large storm on a beach with signs saying beach closed due to dangerous conditions, a person going swimming and breaking their neck has no legal grounds for suing. It very effectively stops so many of the stupid lawsuits you see here in the USA before they get anywhere.
Re:Power of the pulpit (Score:3, Informative)
Slander is speech.
Libel is printed.