"McNulty...said each separate publication had exposed him to 'unwarranted ridicule, contempt, hatred and obloquy.'"
Predictable ending. McNulty a bit touchy. Gotta give him, or more likely his attorney, credit for using the word obloguy. A much used word in FG's world, I'm sure.
ob·lo·quy (bl-kw)
n., pl. ob·lo·quies.
1.Abusively detractive language or utterance; calumny: “I have had enough obloquy for
one lifetime” (Anthony Eden).
2.The condition of disgrace suffered as a result of abuse or vilification; ill repute
thestandard.com
September 22, 2000, 11:41 AM PDT
TheBigHub Adds Subpoena to Injury
Investors who discussed the Texas search-engine's falling stock price on a
message board face losing their privacy.
By Jim Evans
When Philadelphia businessman Tom
Amenta opened his e-mail this week, he
got a big surprise from Internet
message-board site Raging Bull. In
response to a subpoena, the site was
about to turn over his personal information
to TheBigHub.com, a Texas search-engine
company.
Amenta was shocked. Frustrated by the
falling stock price, he hadn't posted a
message on TheBigHub board since
November. Amenta said that since he
bought shares in TheBigHub in mid-1999,
he has lost $20,000 and has completely
washed his hands of the company. The
e-mail from Raging Bull left him perplexed.
"I never shorted the stock and I never was
a basher," said Amenta, who used the
pseudonym "ta1golf" on Raging Bull. "I have
one negative post out of 50 or 60, and this
happens."
Amenta wasn't the only one contacted.
TheBigHub and one of its backers, Robert
J. McNulty, both filed suit in August
against Raging Bull, parent company
AltaVista, three specific Raging Bull posters
and anonymous posters "Does 1-50."
TheBigHub lawyers didn't return calls to
comment.
The complaint? At least in the case of
McNulty, he said each separate publication
had exposed him to "unwarranted ridicule,
contempt, hatred and obloquy."
The McNulty-related cases against Raging
Bull and its posters are just the latest in a
string of suits that could determine
whether message-boards posters have a
right to keep their identities hidden.
Increasingly, companies and individuals are
turning to the courts to expose people who
post critical information about them on
stock message boards. And there's a
growing debate in privacy and legal circles on whether companies
should be made to comply with what some are calling obvious
methods to stifle the negative remarks.
This week, a Florida appeals court heard arguments in a libel case
brought by former Hvide Marine (HMARQ) CEO Erik Hvide against
several "Does" who used Yahoo (YHOO) Finance's message boards to
post critical missives about the company and the CEO. Originally, a
Florida judge ruled that two defendants in the Hvide case could not
keep their names secret while challenging the suit. It was one of the
first decisions on "cybersmear" cases. Legal scholars say the outcome
of the appeal, which could come in a matter of weeks, could
determine the precedent for all such cases.
The problem for law enforcement officials is that not everyone uses
sites such as Yahoo Finance, Silicon Investor and Raging Bull to post
innocent criticism of companies and executives.
On Wednesday, the Security and Exchange Commission announced
that it brought charges and settled with 15-year-old Jonathan G.
Lebed, who sold micro-cap stocks after touting them in hundreds of
posts logged primarily on Yahoo Finance message boards. Lebed
agreed to pay $285,000 to the U.S. Treasury.
But not everyone is using the boards for the reasons Lebed used
them.
"Someone who has made a fair and legal criticism of a publicly traded
company should have a way to have their anonymity protected,"
says David Sobel, general counsel of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy
Information Center in Washington. "But whether it's a good case or a
bad case, the poster has a good chance of having their anonymity
removed."
That's certainly true in TheBigHub and McNulty cases. A Raging Bull
representative said that while the company won't go into specifics on
cases, its policy is to turn over information once the company
receives a subpoena. Raging Bull, however, said it alerts the posters
that it is about to do so.
Raging Bull, however, is in the clear, according to Sobel. Under the
Communications Decency Act, a company is immune from charges
brought about from the postings of users on its service.
McNulty is no stranger to courts of law. A longtime Southern
California retailing executive, he has been involved in various legal
skirmishes and has run into trouble with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. In 1994, the SEC ruled that McNulty had defrauded
investors by using the proceeds of securities offerings from three
companies he headed to finance the operations of affiliated
companies.
In 1999, McNulty left the first Web company he founded,
Shopping.com, amid an SEC investigation into the manipulation of the
company's stock, which had increased more than 250 percent over a
few months. While McNulty escaped blame in the SEC's initial ruling
(the underwriter was tagged for the manipulation), the case is still
open.
In July, his latest endeavor, an affiliate of TheBigHub called
TheBigStore.com, was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy by its
distributors, Ingram Micro (IM) , Ingram Books and Page Digital.
TheBigStore is contesting the bankruptcy in court. All told, according
to lawsuits and bankruptcy filings, TheBigStore owes about $8.2
million to suppliers, workers and customers.
And that's the rub to investors such as Amenta, who said he believed
in the company almost to the very end, only to sell his shares for a
loss of $20,000. And now, as the backers and management of
TheBigHub feel the squeeze of suppliers and angry investors, they're
lashing out at people who at one time wanted to believe. For
Amenta, it's a little hard to swallow.
"This is outrageous," he said. |
