FYI - Interesting Article
Friday September 4 12:14 PM EDT
Itex Sues Over Yahoo! Postings
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - An investment firm is suing the people who posted online messages on a Yahoo! bulletin board accusing managers of incompetence, even though the firm has no idea whom to sue.
Itex Corp. listed 100 ''John Does'' in its lawsuit filed this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
In May, somebody using the name ''Orangemuscat'' declared on the Yahoo! online message board that Itex's ''current management is blind, stupid and incompetent.''
The lawsuit charges the author of the message with defaming the company and its president, undermining the confidence of Itex's investors, customers and barter exchange members.
''Orangemuscat,'' ''Investor727,'' ''colojopa'' and other names are listed as defendants ''presently unknown to plaintiffs but whose true identities will be included in amendments hereto when those identities are discovered.''
Donovan Snyder, an Itex lawyer, said it was necessary to sue in order to find the authors of the message, but he declined further comment.
Itex, a barter exchange brokerage, had engaged in a bitter takeover struggle with a rival brokerage, and has faced questions from critics who challenge the way it values its assets. The company previously has turned to the courts to battle former employees and critics.
Yahoo! disclaims all responsibility for the messages that are posted on its message boards.
''We have no way of knowing who some of the people are,'' said John Place, Yahoo's general counsel.
Place said Yahoo's policy is to refuse to surrender any user information unless a court orders it to do so. But even under a court order, he said Yahoo! would have a hard time identifying users.
The case is one of many that are pushing courts to define privacy rights on the Internet.
''I would not want to limit people's ability to post information online,'' said Lois Rosenbaum, a partner at the Portland law firm of Stoel Rives. ''But I would like to see some accountability for what they posted.''
Rosenbaum represented Beaverton-based Epitope in a 1993 case against a man who posted critical remarks about the company on a public bulletin board on the Prodigy online service. In that case, the comments turned out to be from a stockbroker with an interest in driving down the price of Epitope's shares. |
