Lawyer Sues Yahoo for Message Board Name-Calling

Yardboy writes "Yahoo! News has a story concerning one Stephen Galton who has filed a class-action lawsuit against Yahoo claiming the company 'unfairly protected people who post negative messages on its bulletin boards and falsely advertised that it prevents such abusive messages.' Seems he was subjected to name-calling (such as shyster) when he signed up under the username 'stephengalton' in order to respond to a negative post about an unidentified client. As other users chimed in with negative remarks, Galton filed suit against them (it's not clear from the story for what) and sought their personal information from Yahoo via a subpoena. The lawsuit seeks restitution, a permanent injunction and other forms of relief. What's really interesting is all the message board posts relating to the story have been deleted."

Comments

Re:Protected speech

[gcaseye6677]

It seems like there are a number of lawyers who have not yet figured out that the first amendment does in fact apply on the internet, as we can see by these examples. Although this is becoming a little less common, many business owners/managers have tried to have critical websites shut down for little reason other than they don't like what is being said.

No control over content

[Zaranne]

Yahoo!'s user agreement doesn't protect someone from being abused like that. At least that's not how I read it. It states the user is responsible to NOT post such abusive things, and that Yahoo! cannot control what its users try to post (to a certain degree). It also states that a person may be exposed to things that will offend them. Therefore, Stephen, by registering with Yahoo! he agreed that this stuff might happen.

Another case of someone just trying to make a buck.

Frivilous Lawsuits and Abuse of the Law....

[HighOrbit]

....is almost completely committed by lawyers. This yet another example why America needs tort reform now! On a related matter, the regulation of lawyers by the state bar associations (which are not gov't bodies but are more of a lawyers guild) needs to end. Lawyers should be regulated and punished by *state* (i.e. gov't) institutions elected by the people (not appointed by other lawyers). Only when lawyers like this guy are punished and possibly stripped of their licences will this kind of abuse end. I won't even go into how much lawyers have caused the price of medical care to rise with fivilous lawsuits......

Re:Frivilous Lawsuits and Abuse of the Law....

[apc]

This is frankly bullshit. I'm an attorney in Pennsylvania. I am regulated by the disciplinary board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is elected (not appointed, elected), by the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If a person has a complaint about my conduct as a lawyer, it goes to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. When I make out my check to renew my license every year, it's to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Most states, at least in the eastern part of the US, are like this. Many states, including my neighboring state of New Jersey, post details of all ethics investigations of individual lawyers on their Disciplinary Board websites, whether the lawyer is found guilty or not. Incidentally, I've never seen a state do the same for doctors and malpractice complaints. Or engineers and structural failures. I had to pass an intensive background check before I was able to work in the profession I devoted three years of study to. How about you?

The ABA, Pennsylvania Bar Association, Philadelphia Bar Association, etc. are *private organizations* which collect dues. Many lawyers aren't members.

It never ceases to amaze me, as a former network consultant, how people who would scream and yell at the slightest sign of ignorance of a computer-related topic are perfectly willing to make the most outrageous statements about other people's livelihoods (which, let me assure you, require equally arduous study as CS) without the slightest bit of knowledge to back them up.

Some lawyers are crooks. Some doctors are incompetent bunglers. Some politicians are liars. And some slashdot users? Can't spell "frivolous..."

Re:Protected speech

[Bill_Royle]

The first amendment doesn't apply to this. A private entity has the right to restrict what is transmitted or stored on privately owned property. If the server or service was located on governmental property of some sort, then yes, it would be a violation. However, it wasn't.

This guy is out of luck, regardless. Google and Yahoo can get away with passing the information on without editing, as they serve as intermediaries, not initiators - at least they can in the US.

The irony here is that a shyster can generally be determined by the frequency with which the attorney sues... so even if he does get to court and gives a compelling case, he's basically showing the characteristics of one by suing everyone he can find.

Been there, done that

[prostoalex]

I worked as a contractor for a company that was at the height of the Internet boom in 2000 and is currently defunct. After the first round of layoffs the yahoo message board for the company stock (now deleted, since the company is no more, and neither is the nasdaq ticker) suddenly gained a bunch of users, discussing in excruciating details some "secret" deals that were on the way, some internal budgeting and executives' personal life.

Some of the stuff was pretty nasty, but at times it was a good laugh, and after a while the company started posting the legalese messages on the board, like "This is the legal dept of such-and-such, just to let you know, this board is being monitored and archived".

Anyway, they sued Yahoo! and subpoened Yahoo! for a bunch of online identities who were clearly former employees discussing what was called "sensitive information" on the public board and that had something to do with "negative public image". Needless to say, Yahoo! just kinda ignored the lawsuit for a while, although a bunch of people were a bit scared about the outcome.

Unfortunately, I dont remember whether it was the court that denied any reponsibility on Yahoo's part, or whether it was the company dissolving (I quit after being there for 2 months), but the identities were never revealed, and since the company went bankrupt, not that it really mattered.

Re:Protected speech

[Pharmboy]

Neither should be crimes. Lying should only be illegal when it is done on the witness stand.

Actually, lying to a police office (or other govt. official) who is conducting an investigation is a crime in the US. It is called "Obstructing Justice". You have the right to say nothing, but you don't have the right to say something false. Of course, neither apply here, the lawyer is just a pussy. Yahoo users keep posting new comments, and Yahoo keeps deleting them.

Oh wait, I just looked again, now over 100. Holy shit, Yahoo is getting slashdotted, lol

Re:Protected speech

[Bull999999]

Yahoo didn't publish those messages, the users did. It's like suing the phone company because someone called you a dork on the phone.

Re:Suing for namecalling? He is a shyster.

[0x0d0a]

The problem isn't really that someone is a lawyer. Being a lawyer is simply a profession that involves knowing a lot of laws and how they interrelate and have been judged on in the past so that you may advise people.

The problem is that we in the United States did a poor job of setting up our court system, with extremely lucrative punitive damages. As a result, it is very profitable to prosecute bullshit lawsuits, and a number of people, not surprisingly, do so.

Furthermore, it turns out that most people are irrational and swayed by emotion, and those that serve on a jury are no different -- hence efforts by lawyers to try to sway jurors, and the perception of them as manipulative people.

We recognize that our country has issues with its legal system; the problem is that we then blame lawyers for it.

Re:Information

[gregorio]

Whereas if your story makes the slashdot front page, you can take it as a given that sooner or later someone is going to google about looking for you, find a photo of you, and link to it for all the world to see that you really do look like "overly robust geezer that makes a living walking behind the elephant with a shovel."

Man, if I looked like that, I'd be busy keeping my self out of public view, not inspiring the whole planet to take a look at my fat, ugly, shyster mug!

While I think the said lawyer clearly exaggerated on his answer to the name-calling situation, I must say to you that every single action you take in real life might be associated to a price you are not willing to pay.

I'm very serious about that. While it sounds (and it actually is) easy to say these kind of things about someone, using your computer, it does not mean that what you just did is not something serious.

A lot of crimes are very easy to commit, but they will not give the society less reasons to punish you for what you did. And they are still crimes, and still wrong, no matter how innocent they might seem to you.

No matter what you think about how this guy looks like, he is still have his right to care about his reputation and not be publicy ridiculized by a bunch of people who has not grown (sometimes mentally) up yet. Your freedom to say things about him stops exactly at the start of his rights to a fair treatment and to not be humiliated.

And again, no matter what do you think about him, he still have his rights, and they should be respected.