Nam Tai Electronics, Inc., a Hong Kong-based electronics company, subpoenaed AOL in connection with a lawsuit against 51 "John Doe" defendants alleging libel, trade libel, and violations of California's unfair business practices statute.  The lawsuit revolved around negative comments about Nam Tai posted to a Yahoo! message board pertaining to Nam Tai. 

After filing the complaint, Nam Tai obtained a subpoena in California directing Yahoo! to disclose its subscriber data (IP address) for "scovey2," one of the anonymous forum posters.  Based on this information, Nam Tai determined that "scovey2" obtained his Internet access through AOL.   Nam Tai then obtained a "commission" for out-of-state discovery from the California court to depose AOL's custodian of records in Virginia, in order to seek identifying information for "scovey2."  Nam Tai asked a Virginia state trial court to issue a subpoena, and AOL moved to quash the subpoena. 

The trial court denied AOL's motion to quash, concluding that it would enforce the California "commission" and reasoning that First Amendment concerns implicated by the libel and trade libel claims were not implicated by the California unfair business practices claim.  The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, relying heavily on the principle of "comity" (that is, the respect states extend to the judgments of other states).  

Pharmaceutical company Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. sued several named and anonymous Internet users in Arizone state court over negative posts about the company on the Yahoo! Finance and Silicon Investor message boards.  Although the court filings for the case are not available, filings in related actions state that Matrixx brought claims of defamation, trade libel, and interference with contractual relations and business expectancies.  See Matrixx Initiatives v. Doe, 138 Cal.App.4th 872, 875 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006).  Matrixx alleged that it suffered "unusual" fluctuations in its stock as a result of the statements, including "relatively large-volume selling near the close of the market."  Id.

In an attempt to discern the identities of the anonymous users, Matrixx filed subpoenas against numerous individuals and organizations in other courts.  Two of these subpoenas are addressed in CMLP threat entries Matrixx Intiatives v. Barbary Coast Capital and Matrixx Initiatives v. Mulligan.  Matrixx also appears to have sought discovery in the Arizona court from Qwest Communications International Inc., but the details are not clear from the available record. 

According to the Arizona docket for the case, Matrixx voluntarily withdrew the case but reserved leave to refile at a later date.  The court granted the dismissal without prejudice on January 31, 2007.  As of December 04, 2008, Matrixx does not appear to have refiled the case.

Alissa Cohen sued Doe for defamation and trade libel in Maine state court after Doe criticized Cohen on various online forums, including www.complaints.com and www.sunfood.com.  Doe allegedly purchased but did not receive food-related items from Cohen's website, www.alissacohen.com.  Cohen also sought an injunction against Doe to prevent Doe from continuing to criticize her.

According to court filings,  Cohen alleges that Doe criticized her business practices and ethics. Some of the claims allegedly made by Doe were that Cohen "stole $ 100 from a young girl" and threatened her, that she "threatened a customer's life," and that she acted fraudulently "by cashing a check and then not delivering an ordered product."  Doe eventually agreed to add a posting to the site that she had received a refund when she got her money back, but she never did so because she never received a refund.

On January 24, 2007, Doe filed a motion to dismiss asserting that the Maine court lacked jursidiction over her because she was a resident of Nevada and did not have sufficient contacts with Maine to support jursidiction.  On May 23, 2007, the court denied the motion.

Update:

After extended settlement negotiations, the case was resolved by means of a consent decree entered on September 16, 2009. According to the docket sheet, the terms of the consent decree include the following order issued by the court: "1. That the defendant and her agents, servants, employees, successors and assigns are permanently enjoined and restrained from directly or indirectly posting on the internet or any other digital media any message that disparages plaintiff Alissa Cohen; and 2. that any third party main[t]aining control over any online forum, message board or other website that contains a posting that disparages plaintiff Alissan [sic] Cohen is hereby ordered to delete, remove or destroy such posting within three (3) days of the third party's notice of this order. 3. The court will retain jurisdiction of this case for enforcement purposes and expects that both parties will forbear from directly or indirectly posting disparaging comments concerning the other through the internet or other digital media."

Note that the entry of a consent decree does not necessarily indicate that the defendant admits any fault or wrongdoing; a defendant may agree to the entry of such an order as a method of settling a dispute.

Vlad Zablotskyy, a former real estate agent and operator of Go Beyond MLS, a blog that is focused on "using modern media and Internet as a marketing tool in the real estate industry," was sued by Brabus Ventures Corporation, which operates ePerks.com, a provider of sales leads for real estate agents. 

From August 2007 through February 2008, Zablotskyy wrote several blog posts criticizing ePerks.com and questioning whether ePerks was a scam. Following the posting of a number of negative comments about the company in response to Zablotskyy's posts, an ePerks attorney sent correspondence in February 2008 demanding that Zablotskyy remove all ePerks-related content from his site and cease writing about the company in the future.

Zablotskyy removed some of the material from his blog and created a post explaining why he did so.  As a result of that post, Brabus Ventures asserts in its complaint that Zablotskyy defamed the company and its products by stating that it had falsely accused Zablotskyy of being a child molester on Yahoo! Answers.  (Although the copy of the allegedly defamatory post that plaintiff attached to its complaint does not directly attribute the child molestation charge to Brabus Ventures or ePerks, another blogger has attempted to tie the Yahoo! Answers post to an IP address range associated with ePerks.)

On September 5, 2008, Zablotskyy filed a motion to quash the summons and complaint, arguing that the California court lacks personal jurisdiction over him because he is a resident of New Jersey.

On October 23, 2008, Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the action.

Production company Vision Media TV (VMT) sued blogger Leslie Richard after she accused the company of scamming small businesses in her blog and on an Internet forum. VMT's complaint asked for $20 million in damages, alleging claims of defamation, tortious interference with business relationships, and trade libel.

Richard, owner of "green" fashion company The Oko Box, criticized VMT in the The Oko Box blog and Co-OP America's Green Business Network Lounge. According to the complaint, Richard's posts said that VMT representatives had offered to interview her for an educational television program on eco-fashion. Richard said the representatives claimed the program was part of an evironmental series featuring former "20/20" anchor Hugh Downs. After further discussions, VMT asked Richard to pay VMT $22,900 in production costs and $3,000 for airfare in order to appear on the program. Richard then allegedly wrote postings on her blog and Co-Op America calling VMT a scam and accusing it of taking advantage of small businesses. Richard also reported VMT to the Better Business Bureau.

VMT filed suit in a Florida federal court in July 2008. Richard, a North Carolina citizen, moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. The motion also sought, in the alternative, to transfer the case to federal court in North Carolina. Richard argued that the Florida court's exercise of jurisdiction over her would violate standards of "fair play and substantial justice" because Richard could not afford to appear in a Florida court and could not travel in any case because of a medical condition. Richard filed an affadavit from her doctor stating that she was medically unfit to travel.

On October 09, 2008, VMT voluntarily dismissed the complaint with prejudice. In return, Richard removed the posts regarding VMT from her blog.

In 2006, Reza Ganjavi, a musician and record producer in the field of classical guitar, filed suit in federal court in California against several named and anonymous Internet posters.  Ganjavi alleged that the individual defendants posted negative comments about him on various websites and Usenet's classical guitar newsgroup and created websites mocking his website.  Ganjavi also alleged that the defendants fraudulently published text purporting to be his work and used his identity to make offensive and threatening statements, including threatening to kill a person, issuing racial slurs, and expressing sympathy for terrorists. 

In Ganjavi's suit in California, the court order dismissing the case without prejudice indicated that all defendants either were dropped from the case by the plaintiff or filed successful motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Ganjavi then sued Jeremy and Cindy Smith, Todd Tipton, William Jennings, and Deloitte & Touche in federal court in Illinois over essentially the same facts. Ganjavi named Deloitte & Touche because the company employed Jeremy Smith and he was believed to have made some of the disputed comments from Deloitte's computers (Ganjavi later dropped the company from the suit).

Ganjavi's third amended complaint contained claims for violation of attribution and integrity rights under the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 106A), "false presentation" in violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), false light, appropriation of name and likeness, libel, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, unfair competition, and other state law claims.

The defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit and for summary judgment on various grounds. In July 2007, the district court granted Jeremy Smith's motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. With respect to the two federal claims, the court held (1) that Ganjavi's federal copyright claim under § 106A did not survive as a basis for federal jurisdiction because that section only applies to works of visual art under § 101 of the Copyright Act, which do not include electronic publications, and (2) that the ACPA claim did not survive because the complaint did not assert that the defendants had attempted to or intended to profit from the alleged wrongful conduct. The court further found that since Ganjavi had not established the jurisdictional threshold amount for the remaining state law claims, it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the case.

According to Ganjavi's website, he had planned to refile in state court but reached a settlement agreement with the defendants before doing so. 

In October 2007, Lifestyle Lift Holding, Inc. and its sole shareholder, David Kent, sued Jean Bowler in federal court in Michigan. Bowler runs Ageless Beauty, an informational website on various aspects of beauty, cosmetics, and cosmetic surgery. According to the complaint, Bowler published an article on the website "sometime in 2007," in which she discussed an investigation of Liftestyle Lift's advertising methods by the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

The complaint acknowledged that BBB did in fact investigate the company and its advertising in 2007, but alleged that BBB closed the investigation with a report dated 30,2007, and that Bowler's article mischaracterized the nature of the investigation and falsely implied that it was ongoing after its closure. See Cmplt. 14-15. Lifestyle Lift claimed that Bowler's article constituted false advertising under the Lanham Act, defamation, commercial disparagement, and a violation of the Texas Deceptive Practices-Consumer Protection Act.

The complaint also alleged that Bowler infringed Lifestyle Lift's trademark and engaged in cybersquatting by using "Lifestyle Lift" in a URL for the site and in metadata. (Note: the cybersquatting claim is unprecedented and definitely invalid because Lifestyle Lift did not allege that Bowler registered, trafficked in, or used a domain name containing the words "Lifestyle Lift" or anything like it. The company was evidently confused about the difference between a single URL and the domain name for a website.)

The parties settled in February 2008. The entire terms of the settlement are not public, but Bowler has removed the disputed article from her website.

In January 2004, Whitney Information Network, Inc., a company that provides real estate training programs and seminars, and its CEO Russ Whitney sued Xcentric Ventures, LLC and its founder and managing member, Ed Magedson. Xcentric operates the Ripoff Report website, located at www.ripoffreport.com and www.badbusinessbureau.com, which allows visitors to read and post reports about companies that allegedly have "ripped off" consumers. A number of reports saying derogatory things about Whitney Information Network appeared on the Ripoff Report website. In the original complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that Xcentric and Magedson violated federal and state trademark laws and committed defamation of business reputation (often referred to as "trade libel") by publishing these reports.

In July 2005, the district court dismissed the original complaint, but granted the plaintiffs permission to file an amended complaint. Whitney Information Network re-filed an amended complaint, including only the defamation claim. In the amended complaint, Whitney alleged that Xcentric and Magedson not only published critical reader reports, but edited the complaints to include words like "ripoff" and "scam," and also fabricated certain reports altogether. In February 2006, the court dismissed the amended complaint, reasoning that CDA 230 barred the defamation against Xcentric and Magedson. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling in March of that year, holding that the allegations that the defendants had altered and fabricated reports were sufficient for Whitney Information to survive a motion to dismiss.

Back in the trial court, the defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that there was no evidence that they altered or fabricated reports and that CDA 230 thus barred Whitney Information's claim. In February 2008, the court granted the motion for summary judgment, dismissing the amended complaint in its entirety. The court held that Whitney Information had not come forward with any competent evidence to show that Magedson or anyone else working for Xcentric edited or fabricated any reports about it.

The court also rejected Whitney Information's argument that Xcentric and Magedson forfeited the protection of CDA 230 by requiring readers to describe their complaints by choosing from a drop-down menu of tags when submitting a report. The available tags included categories like "con artists," "corrupt companies," and "false advertisements" (which were allegedly applied to reports about Whitney), as well as more neutral terms like "seminar programs," "multi level marketing," "financial services," and "business consulting," just to name a few. The court also rejected the argument that the defendants should lose the protection of CDA 230 because they encouraged and actively solicited defamatory statements from their users.

Nam Tai Electronics, Inc., a Hong Kong-based electronics company, sued 51 "John Doe" defendants in California state court for libel, trade libel, and violations of California's unfair business practices statute.  The lawsuit revolved around negative comments about Nam Tai posted to a Yahoo! message board pertaining to Nam Tai. 

After filing the complaint, Nam Tai obtained a subpoena in California directing Yahoo! to disclose its subscriber data (IP address) for "scovey2," one of the anonymous forum posters.  Based on this information, Nam Tai determined that "scovey2" obtained his Internet access through AOL.   Nam Tai then obtained a "commission" for out-of-state discovery from the California court to depose AOL's custodian of records in Virginia, in order to seek identifying information for "scovey2."  Nam Tai asked a Virginia state trial court to issue a subpoena, and AOL moved to quash the subpoena. 

The trial court denied AOL's motion to quash, concluding that it would enforce the California "commission" and reasoning that First Amendment concerns implicated by the libel and trade libel claims were not implicated by the California unfair business practices claim.  The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, relying heavily on the principle of "comity" (that is, the respect states extend to the judgments of other states).  

The record is not clear regarding what happened in California court after the poster's identity was revealed.