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Pastimes : Gary Dobry Subpoenas 41 SI Aliases -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scion who wrote (60)	1/18/2002 4:25:37 PM
From: scion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1136

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release Court Protects Online Anonymity of Corporate Critics Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Yahoo! Forum Posters For Immediate Release: August 13, 2001 Contact: Lauren Gelman, EFF Public Policy Dir. gelman@eff.org +1 415-436-9333 x106 or +1 202-487-0420 (cell) San Jose, CA - On Friday, August 10, attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) successfully defended the speech rights of two anonymous Yahoo! message board posters. A California State court found that the right of Internet posters to speak anonymously outweighed a company's desire to unmask their identities. The case involves a subpoena issued by Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., of Oklahoma (PPLS) requesting the identity of eight posters on Yahoo!'s "Pre-Paid" message board, an online forum for discussions related to the company. EFF represents two of the J. Does PPLS subpoenaed to unmask their identities as part of a dispute between PPLS and another (identified) person. PPLS argued that it needed the Does' identities to determine whether the Internet posters had to comply with a voluntary injunction preventing former sales associates who work for a competitor from revealing PPLS's trade secrets. EFF senior staff attorney Lee Tien argued that the messages cited by PPLS indicated only that the Does were critical of the company and how it treats its associates. Revealing the identity of these anonymous speakers would give PPLS the opportunity to punish the anonymous posters simply for criticizing the company. Ruling from the bench, the Honorable Neil Cabrinha of the Santa Clara County Superior Court quashed the subpoena to Yahoo! requesting the posters' identities. Judge Cabrinha agreed with EFF that the messages did not appear to violate the injunction, and therefore the First Amendment protection of anonymous speech outweighed PPLS's interest in learning the identity of the speakers. "This is a great victory for anonymous speech," said EFF's Tien. "I believe Judge Cabrinha's ruling will signal other companies that judges will not permit corporate executives to abuse the courts in ferreting out their critics." "EFF will continue to step in and fight for the right of individuals to speak anonymously," said Lauren Gelman, EFF's director of public policy. "We expect to see many similar decisions recognizing that First Amendment protections do not disappear just because someone chooses to speak online." The documents filed in the case (PPLS v. Sturtz) are available at: eff.org More information on the similar In re: 2TheMart.com case can be found at: eff.org About EFF: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to Web sites in the world: eff.org - end - eff.org Go2Net, Inc. is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of its user community.