An emergency services company in Arizona has dropped a defamation
claim against four anonymous individuals who posted messages on a
finance message board hosted by Yahoo! that it claimed gave false,
misleading and/or deceptive information about the company and its
key employees. The individuals were named in the lawsuit only as
John/Jane Does 1-4.
Rural/Metro demanded the identities of the individuals from
Yahoo! but this week dropped its claim saying that because the
messages had stopped appearing, it had achieved its main goal.
However, according to a report in Wired.com, lawyers
representing the still-unnamed individuals expressed disappointment
at being unable to set a precedent on the circumstances under which
ISPs is obliged to give companies access to private information
when they allege they were wronged.
Presently under US law, if a company serves a court-approved
order on an ISP demanding the identity of those alleged to be
responsible for defamatory statements, the ISP must comply. The
position is similar in the UK. Privacy advocates argue that this is
contrary to the US Constitution’s principle of free speech.
