Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers
September 9, 2005BY DAVID KESMODEL
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
August 31, 2005
In a legal case being watched closely by bloggers, an Internet company has sued the owner of a Web log for comments posted to his site by readers.
Traffic-Power.com sued Aaron Wall, who maintains a blog on search engine optimization – tactics companies use to get themselves to appear higher in searches at Google, Yahoo and elsewhere – alleging defamation and publication of trade secrets. The suit, filed in a Nevada state court earlier this month, also listed as defendants several unnamed users of the blog.
Tags: Law suit
This is another classic frivolous law suit that will end up with the other heap of trashy lawsuits. In order for a law suit to be sustainable, the plaintiff must demonstrate that an actual loss be that a revenue loss,material loss, or emotional loss had occurred in the process. In the absence of tangible demonstration of a loss, the law suits usually have very little room for advancing beyond the circuit court. A blogger is usually not accountable for the answers jotted by other people, heck, he is even not responsible for his own writing, unless of course the opposing party can demonstrate that there was a malicious intent behind the writing. Needless to say, if someone is just writing for fun, for friends, or to share with his community without any intent to malign anybody, he will never be liable for it and no judge will take this type of law suit very seriously. If anything they are meant to be publicity stunt and nothing more. By exposing the matter to the court and to the media, the the defendant and /or the plaintiff depending on who is suing who will gain some media coverage such as the article we just read in the wall street Journal, radio and TV spots, and so on. But as far as making any money out of it, I seriously very much doubt it.
Comment by hatem abunimeh — September 9, 2005 @ 5:44 PM
I know one thing, they could at least terrify other bloggers.
Comment by SugarCubes — September 10, 2005 @ 1:24 PM