Over at the Big in Japan blog Jake posts about a recent legal issue surrounding comments in an old blog post. You can read the post, but the gist is a firm didn't like the fact that there were negative comments about them on a blog post. They requested that Alex (one of the guys behind Big in Japan) remove the post and reveal the identities of the people that left the comments.
Alex contacted the company and their lawyers and suggested that he was willing to remove the post and the comments, but he wasn’t willing to provide the identities unless ordered to by a court. The company demanded that he backup the database and retain it in the event that the company can secure a court order for the release of the identities.What do I think? Each case is a unique thing, but I'll just share a similar experience I had.Do you think Alex is doing the right thing? Should he remove the post? What obligation does he have to stand up to companies who receive a few negative comments?
Back in 2005 I got involved in a situation where a person that commented somewhat anonymously (i.e. they left a handle and fake e-mail address) posted some possibly libelous statements on a blog I contribute to. Obviously the firm in question was interested in knowing who this employee was.
At first I wasn't planning on revealing anything. However, when we removed one of the potentially libelous comments from this person they began to lash out at Robert French and myself. The individual claimed that he intended to remain anonymous and challenged us to figure out who he was. This was conveyed via some interesting e-mail conversations (the person was always using a generic e-mail accounts, i.e. Hotmail, etc.).
Robert and I pointed out that we had his IP address and it was the same for each comment. The response? It would take court order for the ISP to reveal the identity, and a few other choice words.
The big problem for our anonymous tormentor was that we didn't need a court order. The company in question ran Exchange server and allowed staff to check e-mail via the web. All that we needed to do was cross reference the IP address of our 'friend' with the server logs of the mail server. Want to guess what happened?
The lesson to be learned is if you're trying to remain anonymous with your comments, don't piss off the owner of the blog since they hold some key information that can sniff you out.
Visitor Comments
Part of the concern on my part (and in no way does this make any comment on your story), is why do companies have an expectation that blog/forum owners are required to help them go after their employees? Why is it my job to volunteer my time for zero return in order to help track down a user of my site who has a beef with someone else (their employer for instance)?
Court orders aside, a company demanding that I help them discipline their employee is really none of my concern, in my opinion. Even if they wanted to compensate me, why would I bother... or more specifically have a requirement to bother? It's not really an issue of "legal protections", it's an issue of "logical protections".
Posted by: Jake McKee | January 18, 2007 4:22 PM
Jake I don't think companies have an expectation, it's just that in many cases they're used to throwing a lawyer on the problem and getting what they want. The majority of personal bloggers freak when they get a letter from an attorney. They're counting on the fact that you'll just rollover.
Posted by: Josh Hallett | January 18, 2007 4:31 PM
I think the company was quite silly in their reaction. The post was from almost a year ago and the comments were months ago. None of the current attention would have been drawn to the comments had the company simply ignored them.
On the other hand, had the CEO of the company called me and thanked me for the nice post and asked me to remove the comments I suspect the result would have been far more favorable to eSports. For example, I would have had no problem removing the post and would have happily conducted an interview with the CEO as the basis for a new post. Since we knew that the post was likely to receive negative comments I could have closed them before hand. Instead they threatened me and continue to do so even now...
Posted by: Alexander Muse | January 18, 2007 6:29 PM
In my admittedly inexperienced opinion, there are many precedents for comparison involving other news and public media forms (e.g., newspaper, magazine, TV, radio). How does a public blog differ from them, and why does a blog publisher face any exceptional liability standards simply because they hold access to digital communication paths from contributors?
Does this mean a company can go after magazine publishers when a letter to Ed disagrees with a featured product quality or criticizes a corporate entity?
First ammendment issues are complicated, but corporate lawyers are not lawmakers. What precedents and legal documentation exists that can be implemented into blog sites so publishers are not easy targets for harrassment?
Posted by: Izzie | January 19, 2007 12:08 PM
eSport's reaction is absolutely ridiculous. The comments are obviously from people who hated the job. Every company has 'em.
Posted by: Fritz | January 19, 2007 3:52 PM
Shutup Josh. Come get me.
Posted by: Anonymous Osh | January 25, 2007 3:16 PM