Go Online Networks pursues legal action after Internet hoax
LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) - Go Online Networks Corp. said Thursday it is pursuing criminal charges and considering a civil lawsuit against the author who posted a story on the Internet jokingly claiming that a company unit was diversifying into human genome research.
The anonymous posting, which was entered on popular stock chat site Raging Bull Wednesday, carried a false Reuters credit. A spokesman for Reuters said the news and information service was investigating.
Go Online, a technology and marketing company, will demand that Raging Bull retract the post and will notify the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday, Richard Cutler, a lawyer for Go Online, said. Raging Bull could not be immediately reached for comment.
The company's shares fell from an intraday high near 10 cents to near 8 cents on Wednesday in a move that appeared linked to the post by a longtime company gadfly identified only by his online name "Microcap-Matty," Pat Rost, an outside spokesman for Go Online Networks said.
Although the post was clearly intended as parody -- alluding to the addition of "a hot tub" at a company plant for instance -- by issuing the false news story the writer perpetrated a damaging fraud, Rost said.
"Most of what he has done to date has been protected by the First Amendment," Rost said.
The post, which was entered on Raging Bull just before 12:30 p.m. EST generated a string of online discussion, including two rebukes for issuing a fake release.
On Thursday, Microcap-Matty came back with a post saying "this could generate a lot of publicity for me. Maybe I could get on 60 Minutes."
Go Online, a technology and marketing company based in Buena Park, Calif., issued a release on Wednesday saying that a division that refurbishes used computers for resale had expanded its operations to take in personal digital assistants, such as the Palm Pilot.
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