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SI - Site Forums : Silicon Investor - Welcome New SI Members! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Janice Shell who wrote (11992)	5/10/2000 8:17:00 PM
From: scheherezadesdance	Respond to of 32936

Funphone :-)

To: Janice Shell who wrote (11992)	5/17/2000 4:49:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32936

A while back on this thread I REPEATEDLY asked the Dryers (or anybody at SI management) about SI's policy on releasing personal information to those providing a subpoena, and whether they would first contact the individual SI poster and provide an opportunity to fight the subpoena. Well NOBODY at SI ever responded, but it seems someone is suing Yahoo for this very action. You folks at SI might want to take notice. Complaint Charges Yahoo! Violated Rights By Turning Over Identifying Info to Company Yahoo! Inc. has violated the California constitution's right to privacy and its contract with its message board users by turning over to a company bringing a defamation action identifying information about a user posting messages critical of the company, according to a complaint filed May 11 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Doe a/k/a Aquacool_2000 v. Yahoo! Inc., C.D. Cal., Case No. CV 00-04993 WMB (RZx), complaint filed 5/11/00). Yahoo! provides a message board service that offers a separate discussion forum for each publicly traded company. According to the complaint, message board participants are invited to "discuss the future prospects of the company and share information about it with others." The service also invites users to choose pseudonyms for posting. The anonymous plaintiff, a resident of Ohio who goes by the user name Aquacool_2000, posted messages in the discussion forum for his employer, AnswerThink Consulting Group Inc. The plaintiff "posted a number of comments that criticized and even ridiculed AnswerThink's management," according to the complaint. AnswerThink filed a defamation complaint in connection with the posted messages on Feb. 23 and on March 7, served a subpoena on Yahoo! seeking information regarding the identity of Aquacool_2000 and other users. According to the complaint, Yahoo! turned over the information without notifying Aquacool_2000. AnswerThink filed another defamation lawsuit against Aquacool_2000 and dismissed him from the company. The first cause of action of the complaint charges that Yahoo! violated the plaintiff's First Amendment rights and his right to privacy under the California constitution. According to the complaint, the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation that Yahoo! would not disclose the information Yahoo! possessed about him "without his prior consent or, at the very least, without prior notice to him." The second cause of action charges that the disclosure violated Yahoo!'s terms of service and privacy policy and thus constituted a breach of contract. The third cause of action charges Yahoo! with negligent misrepresentation with regard to its privacy policy. The fourth cause of action charges Yahoo! with unfair competition and false advertising under the California Business and Professions Code õ17200 and õ17500. The plaintiff asks for unspecified compensatory damages for personal and economic harms, exemplary and punitive damages, and attorney's fees and costs as well as a permanent injunction prohibiting the release of private information without specific and prior notice. The plaintiff is represented by Glen A. Smith, Megan E. Gray, and Gregory L. Vinson of the Los Angeles office of Baker & Hostetler LLP. In addition to Yahoo!, nine "Doe" defendants are named. ========================================= The Yahoo! suit has received an endorsement from at least two privacy advocacy groups. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) both put out statements supporting Aquacool, saying that the right to remain anonymous should be protected. Chance to answer "Any complaint filed in court against an unknown Internet defendant should include specifics of the allegedly objectionable postings," ACLU attorney Chris Hansen said. "Also, a judge should not allow a lawyer to issue subpoenas in these cases without requiring that the Internet service provider notify the potential defendant that someone is seeking information about him and giving him an opportunity to enter court to protect his anonymity." David Sobel, general counsel for EPIC, said that in many cases the companies filing the initial suits are seeking the personal information in an attempt to intimidate the posters. "They send threatening cease-and-desist letters to individuals, or if it's an employee they'll fire them," Sobel said. "This has become a very common intimidation tactic that companies use to limit the posting of critical information." If the users know about the subpoenas, he said, they can fight back. "All the major ISPs ... will send a notice to the subscriber saying 'Here's a subpoena we've received, the ball is in your court. Unless we hear that you have challenged this within 14 days, or some period, we intend to comply,'" he said. "In that case the subscriber has some chance to file a legal objection to that motion. They can get a judge to determine if the underlying lawsuit is valid."