On May 18, 2006, David D'Amato filed a lawsuit against David Starr, Magic Touch Productions, Kent Barclay, and a number of website hosting companies over allegedly false and defamatory statements posted on various blogs, forums, and websites.  The complaint included claims for defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and unauthorized use of his photograph in violation of New York Civil Rights Law §51 (scroll down).

D'Amato's complaint accuses Starr of posting defamatory statements about D'Amato on at least seven websites and three blogs, including statements that D'Amato is a liar, a pervert, a convicted cyber stalker, and that he poses as a woman online.  The complaint also accuses Starr of posting D'Amato's picture without his consent.  D'Amato testified that he and Starr had had a prior "business relationship" regarding the sale of "tickling fetish videos," according to the report of Magistrate Judge William Wall. 

The complaint also accuses Barclay of posting false and defamatory statements about D'Amato on his websites damonkruezer.net (defunct) and kruezeratnight.com (CAUTION: May Contain Adult Content).  Additionally, the complaint asserts claims against Magic Touch Productions, operator of the forum at ticklingforum.com (CAUTION: Contains Adult Content), and a number of website hosting companies, for failure to remove defamatory statements about D'Amato after receiving notice.  The complaint requested injunctive relief and damages not less than $20 million in total.

On May 19, 2006, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York denied D'Amato's request for a temporary restraining order.  On March 27, 2007, the court found that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendants and ordered the case to be transferred to the United States District Court for the Central District of California.  On July 16, 2007, D'Amato voluntarily dismissed his action against the defendants without prejudice.  

In early 2002, self-published author Jeffrey Hammer sued Anthony Trendl in federal court in New York alleging violations of federal copyright law and defamation for negative reviews posted on Amazon about Hammer's books.  Hammer also sought a temporary restraining order preventing Trendl from posting any further comments on Hammer's books on the internet, enjoining Amazon from removing his books from its website, and directing Amazon to remove the negative comments.

The court denied the request for a temporary restraining order.  It found that Trendl's comments were pure opinion and therefore protected speech and that there was no evidence that Trendl copied any of the work.  The court also ruled that Amazon could not be subjected to an injunction because it was not a party to the case, despite Hammer's argument that Amazon provided Trendl with an attorney.

The court also granted Trendl's motion to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. Later, the court instituted a special procedure that Hammer had to follow if he wanted to file any papers in connection to the case because of the high number of motions he filed (over 50).  After receiving this order, Hammer continued filing motions and filed a lawsuit against Amazon.  The court then issued an order preventing him from filing any papers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York without advance permission from the court.  Hammer's appeals to the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court were denied.  

George Gillespie of Ohio filed suit on September 16, 2005 against two chat room users who allegedly humiliated him in AOL chat discussions.  The defendants, Bob Charpentier and Mike Marlowe, lived in Oregon and Alabama respectively at the time the suit was filed. Gillespie also sued AOL for allowing the alleged harassment to occur.

According to Law.com, Gillespie alleged that the chat room participants "acted in an outrageous manner, which they knew or should have known would cause serious emotional distress to the plaintiff . . .  The Defendants' conduct was so extreme and contemptible as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency."  Gillespie also alleged that Charpentier and Marlowe intruded into his "private affairs" and claimed that Marlowe  drove from Alabama to Ohio to photograph his home (for posting on the web) and/or to file a change of address form with the local post office in order to disrupt his mail.  Marlowe denied traveling to Ohio.

On January 30, 2006, AOL moved to dismiss the suit or stay it for improper venue. Judge Christopher J. Collier dismissed the suit against AOL on February 14, 2006, but the grounds for dismissal are unclear. Charpentier, acting pro se, filed a response and sought to reserve the right to file a $125,000 countersuit against Gillespie.  Following an oral hearing, the court dismissed Charpentier from the suit.  The case docket indicates that the court entered a default judgment against Mike Marlowe on April 28, 2006 in the amount of $221.80.

On July 7, 2003, Kathy Knight-McConnell sued Mary Cummins for securities law violations, trademark infringement, defamation, and other claims in federal court in New York.  At the time of the litigation, Knight-McConnell ran a forum for investor discussions and published a newsletter on various stocks.  According to a court decision in the case, Cummins, a stock trader from California, posted statements on website discussion groups and on her own website describing Knight-McConnell as a securities fraud "criminal," "insane," "paid to lie to investors," and "obese," among other things.  

In addition, Knight-McConnell alleged that Cummins intentionally maligned certain stocks that she promoted in order to drive their price down in violation of the securities laws.  Knight-McConnell also claimed that Cummins violated trademark law by linking to Knight-McConnell's website without permission, using Knight-McConnell's name in the post-domain path of URLs for seven of her web-pages, and posting liniks on Internet chat forums and discussion boards directing users to visit these pages."  

In a July 2004 opinion, Judge Buchwald dismissed the securities and trademark claims.  The court indicated that Knight-McConnell had no standing to bring a securities law claim because she did not allege that she purchased or sold the stocks in question in reliance on any statement by Cummins.  The court dismissed the trademark claim because linking to Knight-McConnell's site without permission was not likely to cause confusion as a matter of law:

Even if we assume that plaintiff's name is a valid and protectible mark, plaintiff has not alleged that the defendant engaged in any conduct that is likely to cause confusion as to the origin of the defendant's website.  The mere appearance on a website of a hyperlink to another site will not lead a web-user to conclude that the owner of the site he is visiting is associated with the owner of the linked site.  This is particularly true in this case because defendant's website advertises real estate and web design services, not investment services, and defendant is continuously dissassociating herself from plaintiff by criticizing her and accusing her of misconduct.

Judge Buchwald also determined that using Knight-McConnell's name in URL paths was not likely to cause confusion as a matter of law because a URL "merely shows how the website's data is organized within the host computer's files" and does not suggest affiliation, source, or sponsorship.

Looking at Knight-McConnell's many state law claims, Judge Buchwald determined that the complaint likely stated a cause of action for defamation, but that a defamation claim was not sufficient to confer personal jurisdiction on the court.  Buchwald indicated that Knight-McConnell's tortious interference with contract claim might be sufficient to establish jurisdiction under New York's long-arm statute, but that Knight-McConnell had failed to adequately plead this cause of action.  The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice and granted Knight-McConnell permission to amend her complaint.

Knight-McConnell amended her complaint, but, upon a renewed motion by Cummins, Judge Buchwald dismissed the case for lack of personal jurisdiction in June 2005.  

In May of 2007, Steve Lonegan, then Bogota New Jersey mayor, filed a defamation lawsuit against Bill Brennan and former Councilman George Silos for postings on a forum site. According to NorthJersey.com, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Daniel Mecca dismissed the suit finding that the comments -- "which claimed Lonegan allowed illegal activity while he was mayor, intimidated political rivals and promised favorable votes to campaign contributors" -- were not libelous.

In December 2005, Texas real estate developer Sienna/Johnson Development and its senior vice president Douglas Goff sued Chris Calvin and the Committee for Responsible Development (an organization co-chaired by Calvin).  Sienna and Goff alleged that Calvin posted critical comments about them on three community websites and used multiple pseudonyms to create a false impression of widespread community opposition to the developer's plans to build apartments near his home.  The complaint, filed in Texas state court, included claims for defamation, business disparagement, public nuisance, and tortuous interference with prospective contract.

In December 2006, the parties settled the case. As part of the settlement, they jointly moved the court to enter an "Agreed Permanent Injunction," which prohibited Calvin and his wife Amy from posting anonymous or pseudonymous statements about Goff, Sienna, or any of their partners, affiliates, directors, officers, or employees.  The agreed injunction specifically excluded "truthful critical statements" made in the Calvins' own names.  The court issued the agreed injunction and dismissed the case.

Jack Gorman, a doctor of podiatric medicine, sued fellow podiatrists Allen Jacobs, John Levin, and Richard Benjamin for defamation and other tort claims based on comments they wrote on Podiatry Management Online's news forum, PM News "The Voice of Podiatrists".  The comments related to an article published in the Malpractice News section of PM News, which addressed malpractice insurance rates and contained quotes from an interview with Gorman.  According to court documents, two of the defendants' comments criticized Gorman's work as an expert for plaintiffs' lawyers in malpractice cases and another generally advocated reporting outrageous expert testimony to ethical authorities for investigation.  

Gorman inititally filed three separate lawsuits against Jacobs, Levin, and Benjamin, but the federal district court in Pennsylvania consolidated the cases.  The defendants all filed motions to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.  In February 2009, the court granted the motions to dismiss, holding that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendants because they had not expressly aimed their comments into Pennsylvania.

In March 2008, Lawrence Sinclair sued three pseudonymous Internet users -- TubeSockTedD, mzmolly, and Owningliars -- for defamation in federal district court in the District of Columbia. 

In late 2007/early 2008, Sinclair published a YouTube video and blog claiming that he had engaged in sexual activities and done drugs with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. This sparked a vociferous response from many Internet users, who criticized Sinclair and challenged his claims about Obama. 

According to court documents, one such Internet user, "TubeSockTedD," allegedly posted a video on YouTube that stated "Larry Sinclair is Spreading Lies About Obama."  Days later, another Internet user going by "Owningliars" allegedly posted a statement on Digg.com, linking back to an unspecified video, urging readers to watch it as "proof" that Sinclair was lying, and stating that Sinclair was in a mental hospital when he claimed to have met Obama.  Later still, another Internet user going by "mzmolly" allegedly posted a comment on a forum on Democratic Underground, repeating the claim that Sinclair was a former mental patient.

After Sinclair filed suit, he subpoenaed Democratic Underground, Google, and Digg seeking identifying information about the pseudonymous defendants.  Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen, representing both mzmolly and Democratic Underground, objected to the subpoena in a strongly worded letter. Sinclair then moved to compel Democratic Underground to disclose mzmolly's identity, and both mzmolly and Democratic Underground opposed the motion to compel, arguing that First Amendment protection for anonymous speech shielded mzmolly's identity from disclosure under the circumstances. 

In February 2009, the district court issued an opinion denying the motion to compel and dismissing the complaint in its entirety.  The court held that Sinclair was not permitted to compel the identification of the three pseudonymous defendants because he could not meet the heightened standard required by the First Amendment.

Specifically, the court held that Sinclair's complaint was facially invalid because it did not plead facts necessary to establish the court's subject-matter jurisdiction or personal jurisdiction over the pseudonymous defendants.  In addition, the court ruled that Sinclair's defamation claims failed as a matter of law because he did not plead either actual malice or special damages, and because section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected mzmolly and Owningliars for "simply summarizing and reporting information obtained from" a third party.

Although it quashed the subpoena and dismissed the complaint, the district court refused to award mzmolly and Democratic Underground sanctions against Sinclair because of the novel areas of law involved. 

In May 2006, Sandra Caron European Spa, based in San Mateo, California, sued a former employee and her husband for trade libel over critical reviews about the Spa on Yahoo.com and consumer review website Yelp.com.  According to court decision in the case: 

A Yahoo.com user posted a review of Caron Spa on January 17, 2006. It stated: "My first impression was its tacky d[é]cor. Then I encountered an extremely rude [E]uropean gentlemen, I believe this is the owner. From what I could see, the employees are miserable and tired. When I went into the steam room I saw mildew and brown spots on the walls.... I could not even sit in there. I went for my massage, and that was ok. But the room had a strange smell and the blankets were dingy. It was also very cold. I guess the owner does not put on the heat. There is just too much to go on about. I will never go there again, and I will make sure I will tell as many people as I can about the horrible experience that I had."

Another review, posted on Yelp.com under the user name "Pippi L.," appeared on March 5, 2006. Pippi L. wrote: "One star is even too much for this place. First of all, when I walked in there it looked lik[e] selling a whole bunch of useless things you'll wind up selling at a garage sale. The serv[ice was] horrible. I had this creepy old [E]uropean man helping me and he was just outright rude. [The] guy was acting as if he was doing me a favor by letting me come to his spa.... And what was with the 18 [percent] service charge? ? ? It's questionable that the therapists or the providers ever receive it. My massage was ok and that was the only highlight of this.... And their sauna and steam room ... was really disgusting. Their lounge are was just full of tacky decorations as what I've heard they've been around for a long time, and I really don't understand why.... I would never come back and much would rather go to the spa at my gym."

Sandra Caron European Spa, Inc. v. Kerber, 2008 WL 3976463, at *2 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008).

On July 31, 2006, defendants filed a special motion to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP law.  The trial court ultimately denied the motion, finding that Caron Spa had made a preliminary showing that the Kerbers conspired to commit trade libel with third parties not named as defendants in the case.  See Sandra Caron European Spa, 2008 WL 3976463, at *3.

The Kerbers appealed, and a California appellate court affirmed the district court's decision, albeit on other grounds.  The appellate court held that the statements in question were not made in connection with "a matter of public interest," which is required to trigger the protection of the anti-SLAPP law.  Id. at *4-7.  The court specifically rejected the argument that all "discussion on internet sites is protected speech" under the anti-SLAPP law.  Id. at *7. 

The case is currently pending in the trial court.