-----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net] Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 4:18 AM To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Virginia Court's Decision in Online 'John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech Advocates CYBER LAW JOURNAL Virginia Court's Decision in Online 'John Doe' Case Hailed by Free-Speech Advocates By CARL KAPLAN Cyber Law Journal In what was apparently the first Internet defamation case to involve both an anonymous plaintiff and anonymous defendants, the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to grant an unidentified company access to America Online's confidential subscriber information unless the firm agreed to reveal its identity. The plaintiff in the case, named in court documents only as "Anonymous Publicly Traded Company," dropped its efforts to subpoena AOL after agreeing on Wednesday to the dismissal of a related case in Indiana. Douglas M. Palais, the lawyer for the plaintiff company, declined to explain why his client had dropped its case. While the litigation is no longer pending, the ruling handed down in Virginia could set a precedent for similar lawsuits across the country. In its decision, the Virginia court said that an anonymous plaintiff could be given subpoena power only if it would suffer exceptional harm, such as a social stigma or extraordinary economic retaliation, as a result of revealing its identity. <snip> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/16/technology/16CYBERLAW.html For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/