Hello Kaye,

I don't see this as a bad thing or a new one :-). Indeed I don't think the issue
is with "old age laws" but with the previous phrase: "what with web sites
allowing posters almost complete freedom in what they say". They shouldn't.

The article mixes two things: a right to protect sources in journalistic
investigation (which might apply, if they were qualified sources and not quoted
gossip), and the obligation of online services providers to enforce the legal
guidelines of the place they operate from.

In Spain we have a law called LSSI which is quite definite. The organization
hosting the conversation is responsible to make sure (upon being made aware of
any issue) that no felonious activities happen on their service. And that
includes defamation, racist comments, and all the rest. Law doesn't stop at the
edges of your server.

Too may newspapers and portals have hitched on the "free user generated content"
wheeze to get more traffic and ad sales, and have egged on unsconstrained
conversations. Most often, in my experience, that degenerates in continuous
brawls, flame wars, and widespread repulsive behaviour. And it is in order to
encourage uninhibited posting that those sites don't even think about
non-anonymous access (they do often gather significant data for marketing
purposes).

So it's good news that people are suing to keep organizations on their toes.

I've been threatened with suits five times in ten years; the first from Apple
Spain asking for the name of a user who they deemed had slandered them (they
backed off), once from Apple US on spreading confidential information (it
fizzled), once from Adobe for the same (they backed away), one from a user over
intellectual rights (we settled the issue and clarified the terms of use), and
one from a company over publishing negative content -slanderous, as it turned
out- about them in our forums. We investigated, and they were right: the user
had no grounds on which to say what he was stating, so we pulled out the
messages gladly (and never knew his/her name). In the end they got
over-enthusiastic and wanted to get also legitimate opinions pulled, so we
pulled every info on them (good, bad, contact and URLs) from the forums and
banned them for good... but that's another story.

Over the same time our attorney's warned over six companies or people to stop
misusing our intellectual property, and one company to stop abuse agains us in
their blog posts.

What I mean to say is that healthy legal protection of people's right and the
working means to enforce them from online actors are very good things. They
concentrate the minds of service providers. Most of the time.

On the other hand, I can see how this could be abused to sink organizations
without the means to undergo a legal action.

Best regards,

Miguel


________________________________
De: com-prac@yahoogroups.com [mailto:com-prac@yahoogroups.com] En nombre de Kaye
Vivian
Enviado el: viernes, 03 de julio de 2009 18:50
Para: com-prac@yahoogroups.com
Asunto: [cp] Legal issues for communities




Hi everyone,

I came across this article this morning. It raises some questions I hadn't
really thought about previously, so I thought I would pass it along to the
group. We probably shouldn't be surprised at this development, but it's
disappointing to me, as a long time community advocate, to see things taking
this turn.

Woman sues to have name of anonymous web poster revealed
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=942&tag=nl.e101

A woman sues a daily newspaper for an anonymous comment made
in the discussion forum. She also wants the name of the
anonymous commenter exposed.

Pre-Internet laws are being applied in some online community cases, and there
are many uncertain legal questions. For example, according to the article: We
have the right to free speech in the U.S., but what responsibility does the
"host" of such free speech bear when it becomes illegal? If a business owner can
be held accountable in a sexual harrassment lawsuit filed because of the actions
of one of his employees, then does a web site have to be held to the same
accountability for postings to its web site?

We do live in interesting times! :)

--Kaye Vivian





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