For two weeks in May 2004, Jessica Cutler, a blogger and aide to Ohio Senator Michael DeWine, posted details of her sex life on her blog, The Washingtonienne (now defunct), including her relationship with Robert Steinbuch (using his initials, "RS"), Senator DeWine's counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cutler's blog posts contained many intimate details about her relationship with RS, including mentioning that their initial date did not include intercourse, but that he "[h]as a great ass" and "likes spanking. (Both giving and receiving.)"  During the next twelve days, Cutler continued to disclose intimate details about their sexual encounters both to her friends and to readers of her blog.

On May 18, 2004, Anna Marie Cox posted a link from her popular Washington gossip blog, Wonkette, to Cutler's blog, which at the time had only a small number of readers. After that, Cutler's blog received widespread attention in the media and blogosphere.  After Cutler became aware of this, she discontinued her blogging activities and shut down the site.

Although Cutler didn't name "RS" on her blog, she posted personal information about him, such as the fact that he was Jewish, was a Senate staff lawyer, had a twin, and owned a home in Bethesda, Maryland.  This information was sufficient for others in the blogosphere to guess that RS was Steinbuch.  In fact, Cutler had blogged about her affairs with six other men as well, including a Georgetown lawyer who paid her $400 for sex, a staffer in Senator Lieberman's office, and the Chief of Staff at a government agency who had been appointed by President Bush.   All of which created a frenzy to identify the men she had blogged about.

In May 2005, Steinbuch sued Cutler in federal court for publication of private facts, false light invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.  In his complaint, he wrote that "[n]o reasonable person would want the intimate physical, verbal, emotional, and psychological details of his or her sexual life . . . exposed . . . on the Internet for all the world to read. It is one thing to be manipulated and used by a lover, it is another thing to be cruelly exposed to the world." Steinbuch also contended that some of the information Cutler published was untrue and that her blog presented him in a falase and defamatory light.

In July 2005, Cutler filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that (1) Steinbuch ratified the disclosure of details about their sexual relationship in office discussions (and that her blog was simply an extension of that discussion); (2) Steinbuch had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a 12-day "sexual tryst"; (3) disclosure on a personal blog, without more, is not publicity and is little more than "writing on a bathroom wall"; (4) Steinbuch had waived any privacy expectations by joining in or allowing office gossip about the intimate details of their encounters; and (5) Cutler had a First Amendment right - and that it was newsworthy for her - to share her personal viewpoints about the pressing public issue of "the interplay between sex and power in the Nation's capital."

In his opposition to her motion, Steinbuch rejected Cutler's legal arguments and asserted that she had sought "widespread publication" of the intimate facts of their relationship and "deliberately declined to password-protect her blog, making it publicly available to anybody on the Internet."  He also alleged that Cutler sought publicity for her blog when she hyperlinked her personal blog to Wonkette.

On April 5, 2006, the Court denied Cutler's motion to dismiss without a written opinion.

In October 2006, Steinbuch added Anna Marie Cox as a defendant in his First Amended Complaint.  Cox moved to dismiss on January 26, 2007, arguing, inter alia, that she was immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  The court dismissed the claims against Cox in May 2007.

Update:

5/30/06 - Steinbuch filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Arkansas (4:06-cv-00620-WRW) against Cutler, Hyperion Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide, HBO, and Time Warner.

6/1/07 - D.C. court stayed the case following Cutler's filing of  Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of New York.

MySpace provided records subpoenaed by the Boulder County sheriff's department in a criminal libel investigation, commenced after a Colorado woman reported finding pictures of herself on MySpace under a fake profile named "Dirty Whore" that included information indicating that she was interested in meeting "men, women and/or couples who are looking to have a fun time."

Joanne Yoon filed suit against Jeff Schwilk, the founder of San Diego Minutemen, Sharon Bush, and activist Ray Carney, for defamation over comments and a photograph posted to a password-protected Yahoo group, which implied that she was a prostitute. She also challenged comments in e-mails between the two defendants and other Minutemen members.

Yoon claims that the defendants targeted her because of her work with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the ACLU, which monitored Minutemen rallies at day-labor sites. Yoon seeks $1 million in compensatory damages.

Permanente Medical Group, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (Kaiser) sued fomer employee Elisa Cooper in California state court in March 2005. The complaint alleged that Cooper breached a confidentiality agreement and invaded the privacy of Kaiser patients by posting on her personal blog documents containing the confidential health information of Kaiser member patients. Kaiser asked the court to enjoin Cooper from pubishing this information and to return any documents in her possession containing this information.

Cooper disputes that she published Kaiser internal documents. According to her blog, Cooper found a Kaiser document called the "Systems Diagram" on a public website long after she was terminated from her employment with Kaiser. The Systems Diagram apparently containd names, IP addresses, computer codes, and screenshots that Cooper considered a breach of HIPAA, a federal law that protects the confidentiality of patient health information. In her account, Cooper posted links to the Systems Diagram on her blog in order to bring the breach to the attention of government agencies, but did not host the materials.

On March 24, 2005, the court issued a preliminary injunction barring Cooper from disseminating patient information. On December 19, 2005, the court granted summary judgment to Kaiser on its invasion of privacy claim. On January 19, 2005, the court entered a permanent injunction barring Cooper from the posting health information of Kaiser's member patients and ordering her to destroy all materials in her possession containing this information.

On her blog, Cooper indicated that she would be appealing the ruling, but we have been unable to determine the status of her appeal.

An anonymous blogger posted the entire contents of the New York Post's Page Six column on a blog without advertisements. On July 8, 2005, counsel for News America (the parent company of the Post) sent Google (the parent company of Blogger) a takedown notice pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In the letter, counsel for News America asserted that the blog's use of Page Six content constituted copyright infringement and requested that Google remove or disable access to the blog. Counsel also requested that Google disclose contact information for the blogger. Google disabled access to the blog, but did not respond to the informal request to disclose identity of the Page Six blogger.

On August 4, 2005, News America sought a subpoena in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to compel disclosure of the blogger's identity. Please see the CMLP's database entry on the related subpoena.

Laurie Holmes, widow of porn actor John Holmes, sued Luke Ford, operator of a porn industry blog, for posting a statement on his website indicating that she had "turned tricks" on the set of some of her husband's movies.

On October 31, 2000, the California Superior Court granted summary judgment for Ford.

Andrew Left published a website called StockLemon, on which he blogged about stocks that he considered "lemons." He made comments on his blog that were critical of GTX Global Corp, and GTX sued, claiming that he made defamatory statements about it in order to artificially depress the price of GTX stock so that he could short sell it for a profit. The complaint included claims for trade libel, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, securities fraud under California law, securities fraud under federal law, and conspiracy.

Left successfully moved to strike the complaint based on California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16). In May 2007, the California Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Left's criticism of GTX on his website was an exercise of free speech, and that GTX failed to meet the heightened evidentiary showing required by the anti-SLAPP statute. It also held that Left was entitled to attorney's fees, including for the appeal.

The owner of the Chicks Sporting Goods chain, which has stores in Southern California, sued James Kuziw for defamation over content on his MySpace page. Later, Chicks Sporting Goods Inc. was added as a plaintiff, and another defendant was named. The defendants have not responded to the suit, but Chick's lawyer informed the court in April 2007 that a settlement was pending. Subsequent hearings have been postponed because the settlement documents were not yet signed.

Update:

6/25/08 - Case dismissed due to settlement

DePlume's blog, Think Secret, published a report about a new $500 monitor-less iMac, new iWork software, and the price and features of the Mac Mini days before MacWorld 2005. In January 2005, Apple sued DePlume and his company for misappropriation of trade secrets, seeking an injunction to bar publication of its proprietary information, money damages, and discovery of the identity of DePlume's sources. Apple's claim was unusual because DePlume was not an Apple employee and was not bound by any confidentiality agreement. Apple argued that DePlume should nevertheless be held liable because he encouraged leaks of confidential information through an anonymous email system and a voice-mail tip line.

On March 4, 2005, DePlume filed a motion to strike the complaint pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16). The motion remained pending for years, but the court did not issue a decision on it.

In December 2007, Think Secret announced that the parties had settled the case. Under the agreement, the full terms of which are confidential, ThinkSecret agreed to cease operations. DePlume never revealed his sources.

Related case:

Apple also sought disclosure of documents and information from Think Secret in a case relating to its "Asteroid" product. Apple initially obtained permission to issue a subpoena requiring Think Secret to produce documents identifying its confidential sources for reports about the "Asteroid" product. This subpoena was quashed in O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal.App.4th 1423 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006), in which the court held that various Apple-related news sites could block disclosure of their anonymous sources and unpublished information based on California's reporter's shield provision and the First Amendment to the US Constitution. (Please see the CMLP datatabase entry on the Apple v. Does case). 

Paul McMann, a Massachusetts real estate developer, sued the anonymous operator of an Internet "gripe site" about him. The website contained a photograph of Mr. McMann, the statement that he “turned lives upside down,” and a suggestion to "be afraid, be very afraid." The website also announced that it would soon be updated with specific evidence of McMann's alleged misdealings.

After a nearly identical action was dismissed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, McMann sued the anonymous operator of the site in Arizona state court, claiming defamation (the publicity and privacy claims in his previous complaint were apparently abandoned). McMann sought to subpoena ISPs to discover the website operator's identity. In January 2007, the court quashed the subpoena and dismissed the case without prejudice. The court relied on Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del. 2005), an important case from the Delaware Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment's protection for anonymous speech requires plaintiffs in defamation actions to make a heightened factual showing (meeting a summary judgment standard) before issuance of a subpoena to discover the identity of an anonymous defendant.