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To: rrufff who wrote (3520)	3/20/2000 9:25:00 AM
From: StockDung	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6847

"Will Details Follow on ZiaSun's Stock Chat Lawsuit? Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not necessarily thorough news accounts. Media coverage of the dismissal of ZiaSun Technologies' defamation lawsuit against eight posters of stock-board messages was short to the point of being incomplete. ZiaSun is a little-known company whose shares trade on the over-the-counter bulletin board, according to TheStreet.com. Last June, it accused eight Silicon Investor chatters of defaming it. On Jan. 21, ZiaSun won a preliminary injunction against one of the posters, Floyd Schneider, preventing him from making "false statements" about ZiaSun while the case was pending, the Wall Street Journal reported. Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman threw out the case, saying that the Seattle location for the suit was not the proper venue. ZiaSun had filed the suit there because it's the location of Silicon Investor's headquarters. The judge didn't buy that line of reasoning and tossed out the case. Judge Pecham's decision also voided her earlier injunction, against the posters, the Journal reported. The muffling of Schneider "struck a nerve in the freewheeling world of Internet stock chatter," the paper wrote. "It also surprised many legal experts, who said it was unusual for such restraints to be granted in cases where freedom of speech was an issue." What did ZiaSun do to inspire the vigorous criticism, alleged to include thousands of postings? Details were sketchy. The Journal noted that ZiaSun alleged that the defendants had wrongly accused the company and its executives of a scheme to mislead and defraud investors. The cyber dissing was a conspiracy to drive down its stock price, ZiaSun countered, according to the Journal. All the brouhaha begs the question: If the issue was serious enough to constitute a free-speech conflict, shouldn't outlets have provided a few more details? What exactly were the defendants posting? Is there any truth to the allegations, however loudmouthed they might be? What kind of business is ZiaSun in? No one bothered to tell readers. News reports pegged Schneider's online handle as The Truthseeker. If only the media were as enthusiastic. thestandard.net