On December 15, 2008, Intellect Art Media, Inc., a Massachusetts-based company that operates a college-level summer program called Swiss Finance Academy, sued Mathew Milewski, a student at Fordham University; Xcentric Ventures, LLC, operators of the website RipoffReport.com; and five anonymous posters for defamation.  Intellect Art Media's claims were based on comments Milewski and others had posted on Ripoff Report, a consumer complaint site, regarding the Swiss Finance Academy program. The complaint also alleged a claim for breach of contract against Milewski and a products liability claim against Xcentric. Intellect Art Media later sought leave to amend the complaint to include six more causes of action against Xcentric, including tortious interference with prospective business relations, tortious interference with contractual relations, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, common law negligence, and injurious falsehoods. 

In April 2009, the defendants separately moved to dismiss. The Supreme Court of New York dismissed all claims except the breach of contract claim against Milewksi. The court dismissed the defamation claim against Milewski, characterizing his criticism of Swiss Finance Academy as personal opinion that is protected by the First Amendment. The court reasoned that the context of the website revealed that Milewski was "a disgruntled consumer and that his statements reflect his personal opinion based upon his personal dealing with plaintiff." The court also noted that Milewski's description of the program as a "bait and switch scam" and as a "joke" were "loose, figurative or hyperbolic" statements and were therefore unactionable.

The court likewise dismissed the defamation claim against Xcentric because Intellect Art Media failed to cite affirmative statements made by Xcentric, despite a general allegation that Xcentric added "defamatory headings" in Milewski's post. The court also found that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields Xcentric from liability as “[nlo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 USCA § 230 (c) (1).

The court disposed of the products liability claim against Xcentric, reasoning that the website is probably a "service" rather than a "product," and that even if the Ripoff Report were a "product," Intellect Art had not proven it to be "defective."

The court summarily denied Intellect Art Media leave to amend the complaint to add the six other causes of action and denied Intellect Art Media's request for discovery to identify Does 1-5 because the Intellect Art Media failed to allege defamatory statements made by the anonymous posters.

The court did not dismiss the breach of contract claim against Milewksi, and transferred the claim to the Civil Court of the City of New York on jurisdictional grounds.

In March 2009, Cash4Gold sued Michele Liberis, a former employee, for defamation based on a post Liberis submitted to the consumer watchdog website Complaints Board. 

As described in Cash4Gold's complaint, the posting contained numerous allegations of unsavory business practices.  One of Liberis's claims was that checks were often held for several days before being mailed, thereby narrowing the window for consumers to invoke the company's 10-day satisfaction guarantee.  (Compl. ¶13)  The claims were later featured in a post on Consumerist.com, a sister publication of Consumer Reports.

In June, Cash4Gold obtained a default judgment and injunction
against the Liberis, prohibiting her from "publishing any more confidential,proprietary information, and any defamatory information on the
internet."  In July, Cash4Gold contacted Consumerist.com and Complaints Board, demanding that they remove the posts referring to Liberis's allegations. 

When neither website complied, Cash4Gold filed a 19-page amended complaint, suing Consumerist.com and Complaints Board for defamation per se and injunctive relief based on Liberis' original post and Consumerist.com's article detailing Liberis' allegations.

Update: 

9/11/2009 - Liberis filed a motion to set aside the default judgment against her.  In the court filing, Liberis claims she responded to Cash4Gold and explicity denied all allegations.  The motion also contains Liberis' answer.

Video Professor, a computer instruction software company, filed a lawsuit against the owners of Infomercialscams.com, a website which hosts anonymous reviews of infomercial products, and several related individuals asserting claims that the owners of Infomercialscams.com used the threat of negative consumer ratings to extort the company. 

Video Professor's ten-count complaint alleged that Informercial Consumer Awareness, the corporation which runs Infomercialscams.com, used Video Professor's trademarks in its metadata, such that any web search for the company would return a listing for Informercialscams.com and potentially negative consumer reviews. Compl. ¶ 47. According to the complaint, Infomercial Consumer Awareness allegedly offered Video Professor the opportunity to "delist" negative reviews of its product and to boost its rating on the site in exchange for a yearly payment of approximately $300,000.  Compl. ¶ 67.

Video Professor argued that, through these actions, Informercial Commercial Awareness and the associated individuals violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) and misused the protections of the Communications Decency Act Section 230. Video Professor also filed for a preliminary injunction against Informercial Commercial Awareness. 

On July 8, 2009, Video Professor voluntarily dismissed the case against all defendants pursuant to an undisclosed settlement agreement. The Stipulated Notice of Dismissal as to Defendants Justin Leonard and Leonard Fitness, Inc. (the "Leonard Defendants") reserved to those Defendants the right to file a motion for attorneys' fees and sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. 

On July 22, 2009, the Leonard Defendants filed the motion for attorneys' fees and sanctions, asserting that Video Professor lacked any evidentiary support for its claims against those defendants.  Specifically, the Leonard Defendants claimed that Section 230 immunized them from liability for the allegedly defamatory postings, and that Video Professor's attempts to plead around Section 230 by asserting claims for extortion were insufficient as to the Leonard Defendants because Leonard had sold the web site in May 2008, before the alleged extortion attempts occurred.

The Leonard Defendants' motion for attorneys' fees and sactions is still pending.