Unnamed Businessman v. Disqus [1]

Disqus is a provider of a website comment system, which enables website operators and bloggers to fight spam and manage the comments appearing on their platforms. It also allows commenters to create profiles that store their comments from all websites and blogs using the Disqus system and incorporate ratings from other Disqus users. In December 2007, an individual claiming to be the president of a European company sent an email to Daniel Ha, a Disqus co-founder. The email complained about a comment appearing on a Disqus-enabled site. (In his post about the situation [2], Mr. Ha declined to identify the businessman or the site where the comment appeared.) The email demanded that Disqus remove the allegedly defamatory comment and threatened legal action in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States if the company failed to comply.

Mr. Ha refused to remove the comment and responded to the email, arguing that the decision about whether or not to remove the comment belonged to the site operator originally hosting it, not Disqus. He also invoked CDA 230 [3], which protects providers and users of interactive computer services from tort liability for the statements of third parties. Mr. Ha exchanged further correspondence with the unnamed businessman, but maintained his position that Disqus would not remove the comment.

In a follow-up comment to his blog post on the situation, Mr. Ha indicated that the site owner contacted him and indicated that the comment would be removed. The situation thus appears to be resolved.