Diane Wargo sued Mario Lavandeira, also known as Perez Hilton, and 25 anonymous PerezHilton.com posters in Ohio state court after Lavandeira published an email containing homophobic slurs that Wargo sent to the blog from her work email account.

The posted version of the email included Wargo's full name, work email address, and the name of her employer. Wargo's employer fired her after it became aware of the email and received harassing emails and telephone calls. Wargo's complaint alleges that publishing her personal information violated PerezHilton.com's terms of use and privacy policy.

In the lawsuit, Wargo seeks $25 million in damages on thirteen claims, including invasion of privacy through publication of private facts, breach of contract, fraud, negligence, defamation, and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Wargo also seeks a preliminary injunction against Lavandeira to prevent him from publicizing her personal information on his website.

Update:

08/27/08 - Case was removed to the United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio

10/03/08 - Court granted Lavandeira's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and entered judgment against Wargo.

Facebook terminated the profile of Jon Swift, a blogger writing under a pseudonym, for violating its terms of use prohibition on registering a profile under a fake name. Swift wrote about the profile termination and posted the email (from Aubrey, a Facebook customer service rep) on his blog, sparking discussion about the incident in the blogosphere.

In criticizing Facebook, Swift wrote:

By banning bloggers who use pseudonyms Facebook has declared war on the blogosphere. More and more bloggers have been using Facebook as a social networking tool, but how useful will it be if so many bloggers will be left out.

A Facebook group named "Let Jon Swift Back Into Facebook" sprang up, and bloggers began writing in support of Swift. A few hours later, Swift received another email from Facebook restoring the account. Jerry from Facebook Customer Service wrote that the account was not a violation of the ban on fake profiles:

[S]ince others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don't appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these Terms.