To: peacelover who wrote (9662 ) 7/28/1998 11:01:00 PM From: Tulvio Durand Respond to
Let's not chase Pink off this board. He makes a valuable counterpoint to the cheerleading that sometimes occurs here, as long as what he presents is intellectually honest.
I want to hear what Pink has to say about his claims of MRV's "criminal" accounting and the decimation of MRV's sales force, neither of which seems to be true. Did Mr. Pink fabricate these stories? Mr. Pink should be aware that he can be legaly liable for intentionally making false malicious accusations even when it's done anonymously on the Internet.
Here's an excerpt of a recent case in which a company is taking legal action against anonymous slandering posts (sorry I lost the link data):
Friday, July 10, 1998 - BY SANDRA RUBIN, The Financial Post
(EXCERPTED TO FIT ON ONE PAGE)
Philip Pierce's Net Secrecy Court decision gives beleaguered company
access to names and addresses of people who have made negative
comments about the firm in Internet chat group.
Philip Services Corp., its stock decimated by a barrage of writedowns
and troubling accounting practices, has quietly won a court order
forcing about a dozen Internet providers to cough up names and addresses of people who posted negative comments about the firm in an Internet chat group. The move has potentially chilling implications for privacy and the Internet. It means Canadians who exchange information and opinions in chat groups have lost the traditional cloak of anonymity and can be held liable for what they say. The order, granted by Ontario Court Justice Nick Borkovich in Hamilton, was made ex parte - without Internet providers, including America Online Inc., AOL's CompuServe division, iStar Internet Inc. and Weslink Datalink Corp., being notified or present to make arguments. It instructs the providers to hand over to Philip names, addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, computer serial numbers
and other information for a specific list of messages posted on Yahoo
in April, May and June. It doesn't stop there. The providers were also told to preserve "all other messages sent by such persons through the Internet providers." And they were ordered to supply Philip with the real identity of the users who posted messages under pseudonyms - common practice in chat groups. Philip was granted leave to examine the information, although that decision was later reserved pending another hearing. Many of the messages, which can still be read, appear to make allegations of criminal activity against Philip executives and express fears of what might happen to anyone who exposes too much about the firm's activities. But Philip spokeswoman
Lynda Kuhn said it was company employees who felt threatened by what they were reading. That's why Philip decided to act. She said some of the worst messages have now been pulled by Yahoo at Philip's request. "The tone of the board became increasingly malicious and downright defamatory," Kuhn said.
Friday 10 July 1998 Philip forces Net disclosure
Adrian Humphreys and Mike Pettapiece - The Spectator
Besieged Philip Services Corp. has tracked down its anonymous critics on the Internet and former alderman John Gallagher is one of the first
identified. Philip has used courts in Ontario and California to force
the hands of Yahoo! and Internet service providers to divulge the names of computer users who post messages using fictitious identities.
An injunction obtained by Philip in a Hamilton court requires the
service providers to give names, street addresses, phone numbers and
details of the users' computers. Gallagher said he has been named by his Internet service provider. He now finds himself at the centre of a swirling storm of controversy bringing international interest over cyber rights and privacy on the Internet. Philip has asked several Internet service companies to provide a striking array of information about Internet users who have anonymously slammed the company.
For more than a month, Philip has been trying to silence some of its
critics who have hidden behind names such as skeptic666, Countbuster and pepcidonmymind. Philip says the critics, using an electronic message board provided by Yahoo! Inc., have defamed and even threatened company employees. "We've also confirmed a number of the aliases are, in fact, one individual. We are not through this process yet so we are being very careful not to carelessly name people at this point."
