[It seems that this involves a company trying to serve subpoenas on people who do not at first glance appear to be parties to a class-action lawsuit it's fighting. --Declan] http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/19531_privacy20.shtml Judge says company's Internet critics have right to anonymity Friday, April 20, 2001 By SAM SKOLNIK SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER In a ruling that could affect Internet privacy rights, a federal judge in Seattle decided yesterday that a company involved in litigation can't force the disclosure of the names of people who anonymously blasted the company on the Web. U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled that Los Angeles-based 2TheMart.com does not have a right to know the identities of nearly two dozen writers who used an Internet bulletin board on high-tech investing. "The First Amendment clearly applies to the Internet," said Zilly, adding that "the law says that a person has a right to speak anonymously." 2TheMart, a business referral service facing a class-action suit for securities fraud, wants to subpoena the identities of 23 people who chatted on the bulletin board of the Silicon Investor site owned by InfoSpace. The bulk of the critical messages were written between May and July 1999. [...] Keith Bardellini, a lawyer for the company, argued via telephone conference call that while case law says people have a right to speak anonymously, "no one has ever suggested you have the right to remain anonymous." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 20 2001 - 12:33:48 PDT