Maybe we can sue LT <g>
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Financial firm sues Net users for slander
Suit filed against 10 anonymous users of a bulletin board at Yahoo!
By Reuters
March 9, 1999 5:38 AM PT
SEATTLE -- A financial education firm said Monday it filed a slander suit against 10 anonymous users of a bulletin board at Yahoo! Inc., hoping to strike a blow against the spreading of rumors on the Internet.
The federal court suit names 10 "John Does" as defendants, and a lawyer for Seattle-based Wade Cook Financial Corp. said it may subpoena Yahoo!, a popular gateway to the Internet, to hand over the real names of the users. Yahoo! is not a target of the lawsuit.
Is the Net the new rumormill?
The lawsuit comes as debate grows over Internet privacy, with users fretting about how to protect their identities from prying eyes, and companies complaining about the ease with which rumors spread over the global computer network.
"These John Does are using the anonymity afforded by the Internet to damage the reputation and undermine the business of a legitimate company," said Wade Cook attorney Paul Anderson.
"What makes this 'virtual attack' even more egregious is the fact that these falsehoods are posted on Yahoo! message boards for millions of people to read and they cannot be removed from the Internet by the company," he said.
A Yahoo! spokesman declined to comment, but Yahoo! is considered an Internet giant at whose website, www.yahoo.com, users can post messages on the bulletin boards, get news and financial information, send e-mails and enter chat rooms.
Unmasking online identities
The suit names a user with the identity "Delusional5," who posted a message on Yahoo!'s "Business and Finance" message board in January claiming the company's founder, Wade Cook, had been arrested for accepting kickbacks, Anderson said. The company denied the allegation.
Wade Cook could file the subpoena against Yahoo! as soon as this week to unmask the identities of "Delusional5" and nine other users who posted similar messages, Anderson said.
"We will identify their true legal names and personally serve them with a summons and complaint," Anderson said, adding that Internet privacy law was still evolving.
Anderson said while the suit did not name Yahoo!, and Wade Cook had no immediate plans to name the Internet portal as a defendant, it was still a possibility "if the case is shaped accordingly."
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