Todd Hollis objected to the information users posted about him on DontDateHimGirl.com, a website that allows women to post about men and warn other women about them. In May 2006, Mr. Hollis sued Tasha Joseph/Cunningham, the operator of the website, alleging defamation in Pennsylvania state court, after she refused to remove the posts.

The Pennsylvania court dismissed the action for lack of personal jurisdiction over Joseph/Cunningham, a resident of Florida.

On November 29, 2007, Hollis filed a second lawsuit in federal court in Florida, alleging defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false light invasion of privacy. According to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Tasha Joseph/Cunningham issued the following statement in response to the new lawsuit:

DontDateHimGirl.com's mission is to empower women with the informationand connections that help them make better life decisions. DDHG.com is fully protected [from defamation lawsuits] by the Communication Decency Act. ... Any attack or lawsuit put forth regarding DDHG.com will be dealt with strongly, swiftly and in a manner which will seek to end this type of erroneous, wasteful litigation.

03/31/2008: Cunningham answered Hollis' complaint and filed a counterclaim against Hollis for defamation. The defamation claim arose from an telecopier document allegedly sent by an organization related to Hollis that stated as fact that Cunningham had been convicted of grand theft by the State of Florida.

04/14/2008: Defendants filed a motion for partial summary judgment. The motion argued that defendants were entitled to summary judgment on several of plaintiff's claims because certain examples of the disputed content were true and certain examples were entitled to protection under CDA 230.

03/2008 through 05/2008: Plaintiff and defendants filed a series of motions disputing discovery issues. These primarily concern defendants' requests for information from plaintiff and plaintiffs requests to depose individuals regarding defendants' reputation.

05/15/2008: Court dismissed Cunningham's counterclaim at Cunningham's request and granted Cunningham's request for protective orders that would prevent plaintiff from deposing certain individuals on the issue of defendants' reputation.

06/20/2008: The case has been dismissed with prejudice by stipulation of both parties. Details of the settlement are not yet available.

Dendrite International, a company that developed and serviced software for the pharmaceutical industry, brought a John Doe lawsuit in New Jersey state court against fourteen unnamed defendants for critical messages they posted on Yahoo! message boards. Dendrite claimed the messages were defamatory and revealed trade secrets, and they sought permission from the court to take discovery from Yahoo regarding the identity of certain of the anonymous posters.

The trial court allowed Dendrite to conduct limited discovery to find out the identities of John Does 1 and 2, who were current or former employees of the company, but rejected its request for an order compelling Yahoo to identify John Doe 3.

Dendrite appealed, and the New Jersey appellate court affirmed the lower court's ruling. In its opinion, the court set out guidelines for lower courts to follow when faced with a request for an order compelling an ISP to reveal the identity of an anonymous Internet poster. The court developed a five-part test: (1) the plaintiff must make efforts to notify the anonymous poster and allow a reasonable time for him/her to respond; (2) the plaintiff must identify the exact statements made by the poster; (3) the complaint must set forth a prima facie cause of action; (4) the plaintiff must bring forth sufficient evidence for each element of its claim; and (5) the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity.

Applying the standard to the facts of the case, the appellate court held that Dendrite had failed to produce sufficient evidence for each element of its defamation claim, because it had not produced evidence of harm resulting from John Doe 3's statements.

A blog post on AsteroidBooty.com, an anonymous blog focused on "chronicles from outerspace, products that rock my world, and more," criticized the high price of children's books and contrasted the prices with the (asserted) easiness of writing the books. The post also included a link to the children's book "Patches the Beaver," making a joke about the possible sexual interpretation of the book's title. Along with this link, the post included an image of the book's cover, and a photograph of the book's author Shane Gauthier. Subsequent user comments also poked fun at the title of the book, adding comments about the author's appearance, possible sexual preferences, and his alleged lack of awareness of diversity and multiculturalism issues.

Gauthier's lawyer posted a comment on the blog threatening legal action against AsteroidBooty if the site operator did not remove the post and comments and issue a public apology. The defamation claims primarily involved content posted by the guest commentors; however, the threat stated that "[l]iability for publication of a defamatory statement extends to all those who participate in its dissemination." The comment also noted that damage awards for defamation claims can exceed $250,000.

The operator of AsteroidBooty said in another blog post that she did not receive the comment at first as it seemed to have gotten mixed in with "400+ spam comments." She instead found out about the threat when her webhost called her and sent an e-mail asking her to either remove the content or send a counter-notice that she did not believe it was defamatory.

After locating and reading the threatening comment, the operator of AsteroidBooty removed the disputed content and issued an apology on her blog, noting that "it was all in jest; so I have no problem taking it down. And most of the stuff I wrote was directed towards children’s books in general (not Shane)."

Todd Layne Cleaners of Manhattan sued Evan Maloney after he posted flyers near the store and created a gripe site at toddlaynecleanerssucks.com. On the flyers and website, Maloney allegedly stated that the dry cleaner "sucks" and "is overpriced." The complaint, filed in Civil Court of the City of New York, contained defamation and tortious interference claims.  

Maloney moved to dismiss the complaint, and, on October 12, 2007, the trial court dismissed the defamation claim because the alleged statements were "pure opinion." The court did not dismiss the tortious interference claim, however, because of allegations that Maloney had menaced customers near the store. 

Plaintiffs then moved by order to sshow cause for an order (1) transferringf the case to New York Supreme Court, New York County; (2) granting leave to amend the complaint; and (3) for a preliminary injunction prohibiting Maloney from posting or distributing flyers, maintaining or developing a website "making reference to or mentioning plaintiff," and entering or preventing persons from entering the dry cleaner's place of business.

In an order on November 7, 2008, Judge Gische of New York Supreme Court transferred the case to her court.  She rejected the dry cleaner's request for a preliminary injunction with regard to Maloney's distributing flyers and maintaining the website.  Judge Gische held that such an injunction would be an impermissible prior restraint on speech and noted that the Civil Court  had already dismissed the plaintiff's defamation claim.  However, the court granted the dry cleaner's request for a preliminary injunction barring Maloney from entering its place of business or peventing others from doing so.  

In April 2008, the court granted Todd Layne Cleaners request to amend the caption to reflect its true and complete legal name -- Manhattan 10021 LLC.

On November 14, 2007, BESCR, a court reporting service company otherwise known as Eastwood-Stein Deposition Management, and two of its principals, sued Trisha Goodman, an Oklahoma-based court reporter, and others for statements appearing on Goodman's blog, "Let's Stop Eastwood-Stein."

According to BESCR's complaint, Goodman started the blog in late September 2007 after she allegedly was not paid $2,300 by BESCR for her work. On the blog, Goodman allegedly made statements indicating that BESCR was engaging in fraudulent business practices and was about to be sued by the Illinois Attorney General's Office. She also allegedly encouraged readers to refuse to accept jobs from BESCR and to forward the statements appearing on it to other court reporters, videographers, interpreters, and technical support people.

BESCR sued Goodman for libel, interference with contracts and business opportunities, and other torts. In addition to Goodman, the plaintiffs named three other individuals as co-defendants and co-conspirators: Michael Henry, a videographer and former BESCR employee; Barry Simon, another former BESCR employee; and Joan Burke, who has "no recent relationship" with BESCR, according to the complaint. These individuals were named as defendants because of their comments on the blog and distribution of its contents (through links and forwarding) to other court reporters and potential BESCR customers.

Egyptian law student Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suliman ("Kareem"), using the psuedonym Kareem Amer, posted a series of articles critizing the Islamic faith, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Al-Azhar University to his blog and websites, Modern Discussion and Copts United. Some of his posts critized the operations of Al-Azhar, where he was then a student, for its allegedly strict religious policies and gender discrimination. In October 2005 he was arrested and detained by Egyptian police for his postings, but he ultimately was released without criminal charge.

On March 14, 2006, Kareem was called before a discipinary panel at Al-Azhar University, Damanhour Campus. According to Kareem's blog (partially translated into English), he was accused of defaming the university and libeling the Grand Imam (the head of the Supreme Council that runs Al-Azhar). Kareem did not deny that he had written the posts and did not apologize, instead asserting a right to critize the university. Days later, Kareem was expelled from Al-Azhar.

The university submitted copies of Kareem's blog posts to the Egyptian government, which ultimately led to criminal charges being brought against him. In Feb. 2007, Kareem was sentenced to four years in prison. (For more information and continuing developments, see the CMLP database entry, Egypt v. Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suliman).

Gordon Parker sued Google in federal court in Pennsylvania in August 2004. According to court documents, Parker claimed that he published a website, "29 Reasons Not to be a Nice Guy." He alleged that an unknown Internet user copied Reason #6 and posted it on USENET, which Google then made accessible via its Google Groups service. Parker also alleged that Google defamed him by enabling users to access links to websites disparaging him using its search engine function and invaded his privacy by creating an unauthorized biography of him whenever someone "googled" his name.

The district court dismissed all of Parker's claims. It held that Parker's claim of direct copyright infringement failed because he did not allege volitional conduct on the part of Google in making the USENET posts available. The claim of contributory copyright infringement failed, according to the court, because Parker failed to show that Google had knowledge of the offending posts, and the vicarious infringement claim failed because Google did not have a direct financial interest in its user's posting of allegedly copyrighted material.

The court held that Parker's defamation, invasion of privacy, and negligence claims were defeated by CDA 230, which protects providers of interactive computer services from tort liability for publishing the statements or content of third parties, because he did not allege that Google was the "information content provider" of the offending material. His other claims were also dismissed as "futile" because the plaintiff failed to set out the basic elements of each of these claims.

The Third Circuit affirmed the decision.