On September 4, 2009, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce sued  "Elmer Fudd," an anonymous commenter on TheSunNews.com.  From Popehat (quoting the original Sun News article that is no longer available):

The posts, which appeared on the comment sections of several stories last month, claimed the Horry County Sheriff's Department had conducted raids at the chamber and other businesses. The posts also claimed that computers were seized from those businesses, although a sheriff’s department spokesman said no raids occurred and no computers were seized.

"The claims were absolutely false," said Cherie Blackburn, a lawyer representing the chamber of commerce. Blackburn termed the posts "a vicious cyber defamation campaign" in court documents filed Friday in Conway.

The publisher of TheSunNews.com notified "Elmer Fudd" that, pursuant to a subpoeana, she would reveal his identity to the Chamber unless he objected to the subpoena. The newspaper is not a party to the suit. "Elmer Fudd" filed a motion protesting the release of his information, arguing that the subpoena violated his First Amendment right to speak anonymously and that he did not have sufficient time to find an attorney.  Fudd did not appear through an attorney at a December hearing on the Chamber's motion to compel disclosure of his identifying information.

According to TheSunNews.com, the court signed an order on December 4 compelling it to turn over identifying information to the Chamber.  The SunNews.com did not have records identifying the poster's name, but turned over an email address "noadtax@gmail.com."  (There appears to be a related facebook page, No Ad Tax.)

TheSunNews.com reported on December 5 that Grand Strand Chamber of Commerce founder Ward Shepherd named former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride as "Elmer Fudd," after being subpoenaed by an attorney for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber.

Dean Zuleger, the Village Administrator in Weston, Wisconsin, sent a letter to Paul Klocko, a local businessman, demanding that he cease making anonymous derogatory statements about him on the website for the Wausau Daily Herald.  Klocko had posted his comments on the Daily Herald's website after Zuleger was named Person of the Year by the paper.  According to the Associated Press:

Readers anonymously flooded the Wausau Daily Herald's Web site with comments bashing Zuleger's salary, his management style, his weight. One person suggested his third chin should have been nominated.

''I have just two words for Dean Zuleger, and they are ... A) anger management. B) salad bar. C) Rod Blagojevich. D) all of the above. The correct answer is D.,'' one posting read.

Zuleger asked the Daily Herald for the identity of the user behind the comments, and the newspaper complied with his request by releasing the e-mail address associated with Klocko's username.  Zuleger contacted the Daily Herald and demanded to know the identify of the commenter and the paper handed over one critic's e-mail address.

Zuleger then sent a letter on his official stationery, telling Klocko to stop the personal attacks and ''come out from behind the cloak'' and meet him.

The Daily Herald later apologized to Klocko for revealing his identity and the paper's corporate parent, Gannett Co., has clarified its policies on anonymous speech, stating that it will release information only if ordered by a court or if a comment contains a threat of imminent harm.

No lawsuit has been filed.

In January 2009, Kristina Clair received a grand jury subpoena issued upon application of the United States Attorney for the District of Indiana, Timothy M. Morrison. Ms. Clair is a Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, an independent news aggregation site with a left-of-center activist orientation. 

The subpoena demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008.  It instructed Ms. Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including email addresses, telephone numbers, records of session times and durations, physical addresses, registered accounts, and financial information.  The subpoena also prohibited Ms. Clair from disclosing "the existence of this request unless authorized by the Assistant U.S. Attorney." 

Ms. Clair contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which agreed to represent her.  Kevin Bankston of EFF sent a letter to Doris L. Pryor, the Assistant United States Attorney on the case, explaining that Ms. Clair did not possess the information requested, objecting that the subpoena was not personally served on Ms. Clair, and arguing that disclosure of the requested information would require a court order under federal electronic privacy law.  Further, the letter pointed out that grand jury secrecy requirements do not reach witnesses or prospective witnesses, and therefore the government had no basis to restrain Ms. Clair's speech about the existence of the subpoena.

U.S. Attorney Morrison replied 12 days letter with a one sentence letter informing Bankston that the subpoena had been withdrawn.

Peri Ness, the founder of Synergy Yoga, filed a lawsuit in California state court against Terry Rondberg, a former student of Synergy Yoga, and Michelle DePalma, a former teacher there, after they created TruthAboutSynergyYoga.com.  According to an appellate decision in the case, the website accused Synergy Yoga of being a cult and Ness of being a cult leader.

The trial court granted Ness a temporary restraining order, which prevented Rondberg and DePalma from publishing and maintaining TruthAboutSynergyYoga.com. The website no longer hosts content, but promises to return.

Rondberg and DePalma filed a special motion to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16).  The court denied the motion on procedural grounds.  Rondberg and DePalma appealed, and a California appellate court affirmed the trial court's ruling.

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) and one of its employees filed a lawsuit in California state court against Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, USA (SHAC), the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and animal rights activists associated with both groups.  The plaintiffs sought an injunction against protest activities at the HLS employee's home, and against posting information about demonstrations and identifying information about HLS employees on SHAC's website.

The Superior Court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting SHAC from placing or maintaining on any website any information regarding any HLS employee or business associate, among other things.

SHAC moved to strike the complaint pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16. The trial court denied the motion because the issuance of a preliminary injunction indicated a likelihood of success on the claims.

On appeal, the California Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court ruling on the anti-SLAPP motion and ordered it to dismiss a number of the claims, leaving others intact.

In addition, the appellate court ordered that the preliminary injunction be more narrowly tailored. According to the appellate court, the injunction improperly required removal of all references to HLS employees, including those in newspaper articles republished on the SHAC website. The court further explained that, while SHAC could be enjoined from publishing the names, addresses, other identifying information of HLS employees, or reports of illegal activity, SHAC must be allowed to publish legitimate news items about HLS and its employees.

It is not clear what happened after the case returned to the trial court.

Florida state authorities charged Robert Brayshaw with a misdemeanor for violating Fla. Stat. § 843.17 after he anonymously posted the name, address, and telephone number of a Tallahassee Police Department officer on RateMyCop.com.  Section 843.17 prohibits publication of a law enforcement officer's residential address or telephone number with the intent to intimidate, hinder, or interrupt any law enforcement officer in the legal performance of his or her duties.  The Tallahassee police obtained Brayshaw's identity after subpoenaing records from RateMyCop.com and Brayshaw's ISP, according to Wired.

Prosecutors voluntarily dropped the charges on December 9 and then refiled 10 days later, according to an article on RateMyCop.com. The state court judge ultimately dismissed the charges with prejudice for failure to comply with Florida's speedy trial requirements. Brayshaw then filed a complaint in federal court in Florida, seeking a declaration that Section 843.17 violates the First Amendment. According to Brayshaw's complaint, the police officer's name and address are publicly available on the Leon County Clerk of Court's website.  On April 30, 2010, Judge Smoak issued a decision striking down Section 843.17 as unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

On August 5, 2004, Taylor Building Corporation of America, a residential construction business, sued Eric Benfield in Ohio federal court alleging libel, tortious interference, and misappropriation of trade dress. The dispute revolved around Benfield's publication of a self-described "gripe site" that included statements and photographs about a Taylor construction project that was the subject of a contract dispute between Taylor and Benfield's parents.

On motion for summary judgment in June 2007, the court dismissed the claims of tortious interference, trade dress infringement, and the libel claims relating to all but two potentially defamatory statements. Ultimately, the parties settled and the case was dismissed in August 2007. 

In February 2009, Beverly Stayart filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! and two other internet services, Altavista and AdultFriendFinder, for unauthorized use of her name on the Internet. She claimed false designation of origin and false endorsement under the Lanham Act, as well as violation of her statutory and common law rights to privacy.

The dispute originated when Ms. Stayart inputted her name as a search term at yahoo.com and altavista.com and was bombarded with spam sites purporting to sell Cialis (and other drugs to treat erectile dysfunction) or containing explicit banner ads for adultfriendfinder.com.  These sites contained her name either in their “spamdexing” text or their nonsensical URLs (e.g. jewellery-makin-doorway.orge.pl/bev-stayart.html).

Ms. Stayart tried to rectify the situation by notifying the search engines of the misleading results and requested that they be removed. When they failed to take any action, Ms. Stayard filed suit. 

In September 2009, the federal district court in Wisconsin dismissed the case.  The court held that Stayart failed to state a claim under the Lanham Act, and alternatively that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred her claim, although it is nominally an intellectual property claim outside Section 230's scope. After dismissing the federal claims, the court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.

Stayart filed a notice of appeal on September 24, 2009.

Update:

11/25/2009: Stayart filed her appellate brief, arguing that she did have standing under the Lanham Act  because of her work for charity; alternatively, she argued that she should be able to amend her complaint to pursue state law claims under federal diversity jurisdiction.

2/10/2010: Appellees filed their brief, arguing that Stayart had shown no intention of using her name for commercial activity and even if she did, Section 230 would bar her claims.

2/19/2010: Stayart filed her reply brief.

9/30/2010: The Seventh Circuit affirmed the trial court, holding that Stayart does not have a commercial interest in her name, despite her charitable activities. Therefore, the Court held she that does not have standing under the Lanham Act. It also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her leave to amend her complaint, because it found that allowing her to pursue her state law claims under diversity jurisdiction would be "futile."

In October 2009, Donald Marvin Jones, a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law, sued David Lat and David Minkin, editor and publisher of the popular law gossip blog Above the Law (ATL), as well as ATL's parent company, Dead Horse Media. The complaint seeks $22 million in damages and an injunction "enjoining Abovethelaw to remove all articles and posts concerning Professor Jones."

The lawsuit revolves around a series of posts ATL published after Jones was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of trying to solicit sex from a prostitute. In these posts, ATL made fun of Jones—calling him "The Nutty Professor"—and posted a screenshot of the "incident report" for his arrest.  In one post, Lat published a photo/graphic mash-up collage forwarded to him by a reader that—according to the complaint—"depict[ed] Professor Jones as a drug dealer and a pimp or both."  The graphic featured one photograph of Jones superimposed on a $20 bill and another talking up a group of prostitutes. 

According to the National Law Journal, Jones pleaded not guilty to the solicitation charge, and the authorities later dismissed the charge and expunged it from Jones' record.

Jones' complaint alleges that ATL infringed his copyright by publishing the mash-up collage because a photo in it was "stolen from the UM website without permission." There is no allegation that Jones, as opposed to the University, owns the copyright in the photo or that the photo is registered with the copyright office. Jones also alleges that publication of the collage casts him in a false light by portraying him as a "dope dealer, pimp, and criminal."

Finally, the complaint alleges that ATL invaded his privacy and cast him in a false light by publishing the "incident report" despite dismissal and expungement of the solicitation charges.  Jones' claim that ATL made "private records public" is complicated by Fla. Stat. § 119.105, which provides that "[p]olice reports are public records except as otherwise made exempt or confidential," and says that, even in the case of exempt or confidential police reports, "[t]his section does not prohibit the publication of such information to the general public by any news media legally entitled to possess that information."