A doctor in New York and a dentist in Oregon have both found out that it may not be easy to sue for libel over online reviews of their services, after their separate lawsuits were both dismissed. And it turns out that most of the dentists and doctors who have sued over online reviews have reached similar results.

So this case slipped by me when it first came down in January, but it raises my ire enough to come back to a bit late. It's Sandholm v. Kuecker, the Illinois Supreme Court's attempt to make sense of the state's anti-SLAPP statute, and it's an impressively terrible piece of work.

Consider two cases: In Colorado, clothing company Façonnable is attempting to sue an anonymous Wikipedia editor (or, possibly, more than one; the number is sort of up in the air) over some unflattering edits to the company's Wikipedia page. But first, Façonnable has to figure out who the editors are--thus, a subpoena to the ISP allegedly attached to the editors' IP address.

By now, you've perhaps heard of the plight of one Joseph Rakofsky, the man who sued everyone who ever wrote about him on the Internet. In short: Man represents defendant in murder trial; judge declares mistrial; judge says scathing things about man's professional competence; newspaper covers the unusual mistrial; law bloggers pick up story; man brings 75-defendant lawsuit against everybody who wrote about him. CMLP's full run-down of the lawsuit is live; give it a click for the nitty gritty. Go ahead, I'll wait.