GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat

crush writes, "An Irish website RateYourSolicitor.com, which aims to let clients find and rate solicitors (a British Isles flavor of lawyer), has received an Irish High Court injunction to remove defamatory material about one such rated solicitor. The site is hosted by a US provider, gmax.net, which has reportedly been served notice by lawyers acting for the defamed solicitor. According to the article, GoDaddy, as the domain name registrar, has locked access to the site (registration or bugmenot required). (Amusingly, the records are all for a 'John Smith' in the Russian Federation at 'lawyercatcher@lawyer.com'!) An interesting twist to all of this is that according to the Communications Decency Act, an ISP, as a publisher, cannot be held responsible or legally liable for what their clients do. So how can GoDaddy justify this censorship? Or are registrars the weak link in a system that seems like it ought to be robust against censorship?"

Comments

"British"?

[johnfatz]

"British Isles flavor of lawyer" When refering to Ireland please refrain from including it in the British Isles!

Re:"British"?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

And heres a very very recent online poll done of Irish people (not Irish Americans) stating that the term British Isles is offensive to aforementioned Irish people. Take your west brits, rum, sodomy and the lash, and stay on your smog shrouded little rock. Cheees, mate.

Re:Go Daddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat

[westlake]

Ireland is not in the U.K.

It's a typo. So sue me.

I don't understand how an Irish court ruling makes any difference to a US company. What other countries' courts exercise legal control over US ISPs and registrars?

It is very, very, tempting to say that, according to Slashdot, "any court that lets you download what you want but can't get at home."

The truth is that the big ISPs probably have sufficient corporate presence and investment abroad that they cannot afford to ignore local law and customs.

NOT THE BRITISH ISLES

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

That would be the Republic of Ireland, thanks.

Re:NOT THE BRITISH ISLES

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Hahah, I love how it gets the brits all hackled up. Not Yours. Heres a link to a very recent discussion board just FILLED with posts from Irish people who think you're wrong. So tis you who is confused. Sorry about that. Maybe a little more education next time, hey?

Re:Go Daddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat

[Reaperducer]

It's a typo. So sue me.

No need to apologize. I bet a lot of people would make the same mistake. It's understandable when you consider that on a global scale, the population of Ireland is little more than a rounding error.

Re:Go Daddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat

[Reaperducer]

Yeah, I know it's unkind, but I've been waiting to use that line for a couple of days. I'm French/German, so I don't have a horse in this race.

Re:Go Daddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Oh they were begging for that, but its was up the choccy starfish anyway. You have to let them know who's the boss. Most saxons are so inbred anyway you have a fighting chance of knocking one up with a little manhole operation. Eh didn't I hear prince "we're lucky he doesn't have antennae" Charles had an abortion once?