Minding Our Manners!

[+ Lucky]

A California COurt has ruled that Internet Service Providers can be held liable if a poster smears another person. Read the article for full details. Now is the website owner going to be next in line if someone uses his site to libel another? Stay tuned.

 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/13/MNGPU30H811.DTL

[Guest Merlin]

I think this will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, and if not, it will end up being limited to this case.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Federalism

 

Internet service providers, because it is interstate commerce, will ultimately be governed by federal court actions; the 9th Circuit, which would include California, has already ruled contrary to this opinion, so the California Supreme Court would likely overturn it on that basis or the ISP in question could simply move jurisdiction to a federal district court, where it would likely not get very far.

 

In any event, there is an international movement to create a libel law to govern all such possible actions in cyber space, given that at present, a claim could be presented in Great Britain which might not past muster in Malaysia or Saudi Arabia, or in the United States, which might not exist in China, just to give a few examples of nations with varied interpretations of privacy and libel protections on the world wide web.