Slashdot Mirror
Blog Faces Lawsuit Over Reader Comments
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.'"
"The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people."
Actually, that's one of the greatest strengths of the internet. True freedom of speech.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people
What makes you think your law applies in my country? I know that US law may like to be extended to every reach of the world but those countires own their internet too which would apply to their laws.
'The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.'
/.
This guy has obviously never been to
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
So, honestly, two operators in a dirty business go at each other, my personal feeling is I hope they both go down. It's kind of like two porn sites arguing which has the sluttiest bitches...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Maybe I don't understand, but if this isn't libel then isn't it covered under the 1st amendment's free speech clause?
I'd spout off some disparaging comments about lawyers, but am now afraid to ....
I just bought a Scion xA and had to drive forty miles out of my way to do it. The reason was that my local dealership screwed around with me so much that I couldn't stand to buy from them.
I went on the site scionlife.com and in their "Review Dealers" section ripped Romano Scion of Syracuse, NY. I told how they had done me wrong and advised others to never shop there.
Is ScionLife liable? Am I? Is Slashdot liable now that I've put it up here?
And finally, if someone spray paints a swastica on my garage door while I'm out of town and unable to remove it, am I liable for a hate crime?
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
The lameness filter blocked me, so find it here.
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.
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
How can you sue someone for other peoples' comments on his/her blog? Most people don't even read the comments, and are certainly not responsible for their content. That's like suing the phone company for what someone said on the phone.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Because it's the Internet, there are so many permuations of where the server is, who owns the site, and who made the comment, and where all those people live. Certainly, a company needs to do what it can to defend it's name, but I've got to believe it's going to get a LOT harder to do so.
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
If it wasn't slanderous, then what is the problem? People have the right to present their review of any product, or anything.
All the articles I read about it only say he posted a negative comment about the web-search boosting product. Did he lie about it, or was it a fair comment that he made?
Some people will sue others over even looking at them funny. Overall, though, I have my money on Aaron Wall.
...the court systems are there to beat people up with.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
It could be worse. In Iraq, Khalid Jarrar was recently arrested for simply viewing comments in a blog.
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
'The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.'
Horse pucky. If you aren't free to share your opinion, then this isn't the United States I thought I lived in. More and more, it seems like the freedom of speech is directly related to how much money you have.
There is a huge difference between blatently attempting to undermine and destroy a reputation, and simply expressing your opinion (negative or otherwise). The ability to express one's opinion, even if said opinion is extremely negative, should be protected speech.
The people filing this lawsuit are nothing more than schoolyard bullies.
you are right, until you factor in the effect of the WTO treaties..
All they have to do is attach the term ' commerce ' to the case, and the more favorable laws apply .
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There are tons of people out there saying microsoft blows, and I havn't heard of them getting sued. I think they are just scared because, it must be true. Personally I have never used any of their tools, but I think they should be able to handle a few people badmouthing them. I think this is a gross overreaction on their part. I say to them "MAN UP" and "GROW UP" and maybe make your product better if it has problems, don't sue the guy who wants to save people the headache and money of using said product.
w00t
...is for the publicity. If they had simply ignored this blog, who would know about this company whose initials are TP? Now everyone on slashdot, among other web forums, knows. Troll successful.
'The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.'
I beg to differ.
Hurting someone else's feelings is my spaghetti-god-given right.
""To be candid, he sort of moved into this moving propeller," said Mr. Perry, a former Orange County judge. He said courts would likely focus on how Mr. Wall responded to requests to remove material from his site, and Mr. Wall's criticism of Traffic-Power.com. "The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people.""
wrong try again - it called freedom of speech -
like I can say microsoft sucks and is a convicted monopolists that uses strongarm tactics to undermine the open standards in the industry.
I also can say Linux rocks.
since when are we going to sensor what people say on the internet. I tell people all day that microsoft sucks - so you are telling me I can get sued for that. Can we all say Back in the USSR. There I knew you could.
"The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people"
:)
:(
It isn't?
Last I heard people were free to express an opinion, even one that is "wrong".
Well sure, spreading lies and actively defacing or hurting an individual should be frowned upon, but bad-mouthing a company or a competitor you don't like? Hello? Slashdot anyone? Yes, the editors get involved in this too. Slashdot is as much of a bash fest as it is a news and informative opinion medium.
If merely bad mouthing a company that you don't like is not legal, Slashdot would have been sued out of existance long ago! Half the comments made about companies we don't like here are in fact complete nonsense and out-right lies.
If cases like this hold up, places like Slashdot don't have much of a future. As much as I hate the large amount of truly idiodic comments that cross this site, I don't want to see it taken down by corporate lawyers and I sure as hell don't want to feel like every word I say, interpreted in any number of ways by any number of people might suddenly land me in jail.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Freedom of Speech is not free. It's costs are measured by the expenses of defending it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Billie Holiday & Arthur Herzog Jr said it best:
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry 'bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own
Everything I know about IP I learned on slashdot, but...
(Sorry, I've always wanted to say that. Actually, most of what I know about IP was learned while helping my SO study for her IP class in her MBA program)
Let me get the facts straight, as the article seemed a little light on details. Some guy, in the US, posts factual information or personal opinion on his weblog, and allows others to do so as well. These include unkind words about a company who makes a product or service which may compete with a product or service with which the author is financially involved. (try and parse that one)
A Trade Secret, traditionally, is something so necessary to your core business and so valuable that you believe that keeping it a secret is more likely to make you money than patenting it, or it is unpatentable. Telling the world a trade secret is only unlawful if you are contractually bound not to tell, or if you came by the information through theft or other nefarious means. Once a trade secret is no longer secret, you have no protection (hence the incentive for patenting and licensing).
So, unless this guy stole the information, or is under a nondisclosure agreement, this looks an awful lot like free speech. The others who posted in his site may have written unkind things as well, but the comments are (I assume) clearly delineated as visitor comments, and not the writings of the author. I think you can go pretty far toward slander without getting into trouble that way.
I'm wondering why this is even an issue, unless its just punishement through lawyer fees, regardelss of the outcome.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Seriously when did people get this idea that you should be able to say whatever you want and never have any consequences? All freedom of speech means is that the Government won't try to stop your (should be political) speech. It doesn't mean you can libel and slander people anonymously consequence free.
Why should you be allowed to go around staring negative rumours about your business competitors? How would you like your boss to lie to a future employer that you got fired for drug abuse or for having kiddie porn?
People want rights but never seem to understand that responsibilities are just as important for the functioning of society.
One of the great problems with the Internet currently is that there are so many anonymous cowards, who troll, spam and lie. There is very little consequence to such actions so people aren't inhibited.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
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 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).
I have a blog.
from posting on someone's forum or blog, who I don't like, and hope they get sued.
/., saying how bad a big company is, and have them sue CmdrTaco :) W000T!!! CmdrTaco I want my mod points or else!
ALright, with luck I can post as an AC on
This just shows how stupid courts can get, and I swear, judges should really just smack some people around.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
"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" (emphasis mine)
Number one tool for boosting web traffic: publicity. Hence, lawsuit.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Very decent.
Look! there is even a mailinglist I can subscribe to. Quick let's do it before someone else does it.
Hmm, what do I get for a page:
What a losers
As seen on this discussion and this website.
Reminds me a bit of a certan guy at SCO...
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Everyone on this site is a convicted murderer who eats babies.
Just libeled all of you! (I hope). You may begin suing Slashdot now.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
this case will revolve around the communications decency act (wikipedia) and the phrase: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
like the article says, this really is still a murky area of the law--tho some decisions (like the Zeran one mentioned) seem to grant immunity, it's not clear whether this law really extends so far. recently there was a case involving eBay and a defamatory comment posted in feedback that went to the CA supreme court.
but, it seems like blogger=user of an interactive computer service (blog software/internet etc.) and post was by another, so you might conclude that the blogger shouldn't be treated as speaker, though it depends a good amount on the interpretation of the clause, since that is pretty broad. But the trade secret issue may tear down any protection from the law, if it's valid.
it seems more intelligent to go after the actual offender, not the host of the comment, but people generally want to go after the bigger fish, and it is often more difficult to track down the actual commenter.
the_raptor (652941) has kiddie porn and uses the marijuana. Tell a friend.
It must meet three criteria:
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.
"The Internet is not your personal stump to beat up people."
The hell he says. It's called the First Amendment, firstly, and secondly, speech is what the Internet is FOR! It's not a communications system run for the benefit of corporations. It's a protocol. It was designed to let people speak -- once upon a time, the people who couldn't speak because a cult or a country would destroy them for voicing the truth. No more...
There are laws covering slander and libel. If a business is suing people regardless of actual illegality, then we have a abuse of the courts a la Scientology. Sue to make people shut up; failing that, bankrupt and ruin them as a warning to others.
All freedom of speech means is that the Government won't try to stop your (should be political) speech.
It seems like the idea here is that you should have freedom of speech if you're criticizing the government, but not if you're criticizing a business.
Considering the large number of people I run across who espouse the belief the government should have as little power as possible and businesses should take up any important functions instead, this would seem in the long run to maybe lead to not having any meaningful free speech at all.
"Libel" doesn't really have anything to do with it. Did you read the article? You know, the one this comments section is supposedly talking about? The lawsuit doesn't even specify exactly which comments that seobook.com is being sued for, and the claims which were likely to have sparked the lawsuit seem to have been corroborated by other sources. In this light it seems likely that the comments prompting the lawsuit at worst are legitimate criticisms of this trafficpower company, and at best are incorrect but honestly meant by the people who posted them.
Ever heard the term "chilling effects"? The problem is we have to err on either one side or the other. Either we are too cautious with freedom of speech and allow bad information to flourish, or we are too strict and dissuade people from exercising their freedom. There isn't a middle ground. The thing is though that if we err on the side of caution, nothing is hurt. People can make up their own minds and decide not to trust an "anonymous coward" on the internet unless what they say can be corroborated. However if we err on the other side, and wind up silencing people because they cannot risk the consequences of having spoken, then there is no way to repair this. Those comments are lost forever.
There is very little consequence to such actions so people aren't inhibited.
Ah yes, this horrible environment in which there are no negative consequences for expressing oneself... how will civilization survive.
Timely Warnings...Blogging Can Get You Sued!
No, blogging cannot get you sued, nor can owning and firing a gun.
You're confusing the following:
1. Anyone can sue you - it may be tossed out of court, you may win damages, but anyone can sue you who has standing with the court(s). Especially in America.
2. Owning and firing a gun is illegal in most city limits of America. Even if you eventually win the case, you can still be arrested and held for up to 72 hours without charges being filed, under many pretexts.
3. However, just because 1 and 2 are true doesn't mean you're not right in your basic premise that bloggers being sued for something another person posted is highly unlikely to ever successfully result in a negative ruling by the courts on the merits of the case.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
2008 XX-XX
United Press International
In a landmark case, a recent civil action has resulted in a person being successfully sued for having a negative opinion. Said the plaintiff's attorney: "Look, everyone knew that the defendant had a poor opinion of my client. He didn't precisely say this explicitly, but it was evident in his conduct and manner. The defendant is a well-respected member of his community, and so this implied reputation had a direct negative effect on my client, both from a social and (more importantly) fiscal perspective. Knowing that the defendant didn't like my client in the least, prospective employers would view this negatively, either preventing my client from getting a good job, or reducing the scope of compensation offers. We are fortunate to have found a judge who understood the nuances of this case."
Based on extensive precedent set in the Civil Rights litigation of the 20th century, it became de facto illegal to dislike someone if they were of an oppressed minority of any type. It was practically foreordained that this would be expanded to eventually apply regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. What happened here today is expected to be repeated across the country shortly.
-Styopa
I've investigated traffic power before after a customer wanted to use them for search engine optimization. They're a very shady search engine that's been banned by google, and whose customers have been banned by google. Just do a google search on "traffic power" and notice the traffic-power.com website doesn't come up at all. Isn't it funny that a search engine optimization company doesn't have their own website come up first on google when you search for them by name?
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.
Any sane justice system would see this case decided in 45 minutes. The blogger is responsible for publishing his own comments; the others are responsible for publishing theirs.
There might be a day or two argument over truth, liability and damages. If the comments are not true, then the people making them in public are liable for any damages proven to be caused by those comments. Not very complicated, and certainly nothing new on which to make arguments about "new Internet technologies" which make this different.
Instead, watch this dispute consume months or years, including many days of scarce, publicly funded justice system labor. Watch lawyers pad their pockets with arguments that go nowhere, probably to arrive at either a backwards precedent, or just a settlement that settles nothing but the exchange of more money between the parties (and even more cuts to their lawyers). This is going to cost all of us even more money, immediately in the costs to the justice system to moderate this debate, probably without any benefit to future cases.
This whole notion that "X changed everything" is the biggest lie of our lifetimes. Even when that's partly true, like Columbus' return from the Western Hemisphere with proof that Europeans should conquer the territory, it changes a lot - but not everything. Like realities of physics, economics, and justice. Other laws, like those written by lawyers and approved by judges, can change, too. But those are usually changed to suit the lawyers, regardless of how they affect the rest of us.
Like saying that public speech on the Internet changes the familiar expectations of public, unmoderated speech and liability. Just like when someone posts slanderous, lying posters on a wall along a busy sidewalk. The building owner isn't liable for the damage caused by the posters, unless they're also the posterer. Likewise, people already know that unmoderated websites aren't responsible for the posts made by the public. All the noise to the contrary is just lawyers making excuses to increas their billings.
--
make install -not war
I believe part of the answer lies in editorial control. If you delete comments on your blog, you may be conisderet an editor rather than a common carrier, and become responsible for the content.
Another case is if you refuse to remove illegal material from your blog, when pointed out to you, you may become responsible.
Of course, if you do remove the material, it may be viewer as editorial control, so it is damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
The U.S. law in question, which protects "service providers" from libel liability from third-party postings, has an interesting history. Back in 1995, a New York judge found that the then-proprietary Prodigy service could be held responsible for an allegedly libelous posting to its Money Talk bulletin board about the Stratton Oakmont financial services firm, on the theory that Prodigy exercised editorial control over the postings. The fact that Prodigy's editorial control was limited to automated dirty-words filtering was lost on the judge.
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, 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 case for just one example of this.)
-------------------
Prof. Jonathan I. Ezor
Assistant Professor of Law and Technology
Director, Institute for Business, Law and Technology (IBLT)
Touro Law Center
Co-Author, TechLawProf Blog
Well, what do you call abusive legal games? Threatening lawsuits that will supposedly be dropped, if only you'd start playing nice with the evil bastards that you harmed by posting the truth. And if not, they'll sue you for everything you're worth. Still without an actual statement of what they consider harmful.
Sounds almost like Traffic Power is a company with a useless service. That Traffic Power knows they have a useless service. And that Traffic Power specifically trains their representatives in lying to avoid painful questions. (Why they aren't listed on Google, do your tricks actually work, etc.)
So yeah, a company with absolutely no credibility sues someone, with the intention of driving legitimate comments offline by bankrupting anyone willing to share the truth and yeah, people do start talking about free speech being murdered.
This is as blatant as that Robert Novak thief who ran Pet Warehouse and sued people for reporting that he sent them dead pets. Assuming people can't afford to fight these bastards in court, I really wish they'd curb stomp them in real life. What good can ever come from letting a complete bastard like Max D Spilka (Traffic Power liar/lawyer) walk the earth? Sure, behind every dirty lawyer is a dirty client, but that client isn't capable of ruining hundreds of lives without the lawyer - imho the lawyers are the ones we should target. Worthless wastes of skin. Exactly what you'd expect from a company whose business is tricking people into going to sites that don't really offer what they want.