I submitted the story and I agree my comment to use Google cache was misleading. To the flamers, yes I know it won't really protect you and that Google isn't the most privacy-loving company in the world.
What I meant to imply was that the defendants could have been using Google cache. The defendant posted links to three articles and copied some text from each. You don't need to load the original page for that. Just the Google cache will do, and often it's faster.
Plaintiffs didn't send a letter to Google, at least not one that's in the court filing. AFAIK Google uses a very distributed and dynamic system to store its cache, so good luck finding which system cached that page at a particular time almost one year ago. But maybe they can try.
Not subpoenaing Google creates some problems, because it could be that the subpoenas have no chance of finding the actual poster but have a good chance of finding innocent readers. The plantiffs' names had been posted numerous times before, and plenty of people could have searched for and found and read those pages without any malicious intent. And of course the plaintiffs are actual people, law students in fact, so they may have had friends, classmates, etc. that innocently searched for their names as well.
But I should put "innocently" in quotes, because who knows if that is about to change.
Excerpt from letter to HighBeam Research, from page 48 of the Justia link. The plaintiffs actually asked for a week's worth of access logs:
We have reason to believe that at least one defendant used your service to post allegdly tortious content regarding out clients on AutoAdmit.com and/or to email that content to third parties. That defendant posted or sent that information on March 7, 2007 at 5:23 p.m. EST after using your service to access an article titled "Ex-World Bank Official Disappears From Trial," which is found at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-915261.html.
We hope that, given the egregious conduct that is alleged in this case, HighBeam will disclose certain information that may allow us to determine the identities of the named defendants in this lawsuit. To that end, we request that HighBeam provide us with information that identifies the person(s) using your service to locate the above-identified article, including but not limited to first and last names, present or last known mailing addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and all logs containing the source Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses of all access to the location or file "1P2-915261.html", "915261" or other variants thereof between 12:00 a.m. EST on March 1, 2007 and 5:23 p.m. on March 7, 2007.
Response from HighBeam, page 86:
We spent a fair bit of time determining whether it was technically possible to comply with this request. We have determined that our system simply does not allow us to obtain the information you are seeking about the identity of a person accessing a particular story at a certain time.
I cannot begin to explain to you the complex technical reasons for this. However, if you have a technology consultant working with you, I will be happy to put that person in touch with our CTO for a complete explanation.
Plaintiffs can't issue a subpoena without the court's permission since discovery hasn't began. That's the whole nature of the motion for expedited discovery.
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I submitted the story and I agree my comment to use Google cache was misleading. To the flamers, yes I know it won't really protect you and that Google isn't the most privacy-loving company in the world.
What I meant to imply was that the defendants could have been using Google cache. The defendant posted links to three articles and copied some text from each. You don't need to load the original page for that. Just the Google cache will do, and often it's faster.
Plaintiffs didn't send a letter to Google, at least not one that's in the court filing. AFAIK Google uses a very distributed and dynamic system to store its cache, so good luck finding which system cached that page at a particular time almost one year ago. But maybe they can try.
Not subpoenaing Google creates some problems, because it could be that the subpoenas have no chance of finding the actual poster but have a good chance of finding innocent readers. The plantiffs' names had been posted numerous times before, and plenty of people could have searched for and found and read those pages without any malicious intent. And of course the plaintiffs are actual people, law students in fact, so they may have had friends, classmates, etc. that innocently searched for their names as well.
But I should put "innocently" in quotes, because who knows if that is about to change.
Plaintiffs can't issue a subpoena without the court's permission since discovery hasn't began. That's the whole nature of the motion for expedited discovery.
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=753317&mc=167&forum_id=2#9222459