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Canadian Court Orders Site To ID Anonymous Posters
An anonymous reader writes "A Canadian court has ordered
the owners of the FreeDominion.ca to disclose all personal information on eight anonymous posters to the chat site. The
required information includes email and IP addresses. The court ruled that anonymous posters have no reasonable expectation of privacy, a major blow to online free speech in Canada."
The court ruled that anonymous posters have no reasonable expectation of privacy, a major blow to online free speech in Canada.
If they did not expect privacy then why did they anonymously post? Perhaps they posted anonymously because they specifically did not want, desire, or expect privacy - after all, they could have used their own credentials. Nope, that can't be it.
You are wrong. SCOTUS has made no such ruling. The closest it has come was in a case that overturned an Ohio law requiring people to put their name on campaign pamphlets (Talley v. California).
If they had made such a case then lower courts would not be finding the opposite as recently as last month. See the Topix has in Texas:
[quote]A Texas judge has ordered an online news site to unveil identifying details about 178 anonymous commenters on the site. The order came after a couple, Mark and Rhonda Lesher, sued the numerous anonymous commenters posting to Topix.com for making what they considered to be "perverted, sick, vile, inhumane accusations" about them. [/quote]
There are similiar cases currently in Maryland, California, and Delaware. Some are in the state supreme court, some have just had verdits made. I would not be suprised if SCOTUS hears an appeal from one of these soon.