"Naming Names" -- A legal challenge to internet anonymity in Maryland

[Sparkly]

Maryland's highest court will soon decide how easy it is to unmask those who use pseudonyms to post critical comments on the Internet. So far, the state has been operating without a set of rules for identifying those people, but the issue has surfaced over criticism of an Eastern Shore developer.

The issue of Internet anonymity has cropped up in other courts around the country, but this is the first time that Maryland's Court of Appeals has confronted it. This month, the judges heard arguments that invoked the right to anonymous free speech and the right of defamed people to sue their attackers.

The outcome will have implications for the thousands of people who post critical comments, true or not, on Internet message boards, chat rooms and blogs.

Decisions in similar cases around the country have varied.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/easternshore/bal-id.internet28dec28,0,6133140.story?track=rss

The article gives a brief overview of the legal arguments. Quite interesting.

What do you think? (I have to wonder if the solution is for people as a whole to learn to put no value in anonymous internet postings.)

[riverdeep]

1. That has some chilling implications.

Does that mean all those people who post critical opinions of a product on Amazon could theoretically be revealed and sued. Here was the comment on the Dunkin Donuts that the messager left:

"I wouldn't go to that Dunkin' Donuts of Brodie's anyway ... have you taken a close look at it lately? One of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen."

And that was enough to start the litigation process.

The other side of this that there have been cases where people have posted derogatory and untrue statement about individuals, identified very specifically. When employers do a Google search on the potential employee, or a college admission board does, all these horrific allegations pop up. For most of them, they won't listen to the other side of the story, they just move on to the next applicant. So, they're rejected because of what posters with no soul said on the internet. In some cases, the afflicted party went and sued to have the owners penalized. Here's an example:

"Students File Suit Against Ex-AutoAdmit Director, Others"
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/06/12/students-file-suit-against-autoadmit-director-others/

And a blog posting from someone on the receiving end of abusive postings (but not one who sued):

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/06/13/take-it-like-a-man/

[Kip Humphrey]

2. Anonymity? wassat?

[Posteritatis]

3. It's something everyone wants for only those acts and views they like (nt)