Legal Showdown in Search Fracas
There were a lot of issues covered in the above article. Essentially, a Seach Engine Optimizer, Traffic-Power, was suing Aaron Wall for comments people made about the company on his blog. They were claiming defamation, and publishing of trade secrets. This raises issues of the freedom of speech on blogs, and even right to privacy of the users.
For this post several questions were posed. Most prevalent in the article is the question whether people should be held accountable for those who post on their blog. They are not the ones creating the content, they are only creating the topic. Still, though, do they have an obligation to monitor this, and make sure it's all accurate and of good character? There are some sites that certainly do this. IMDB is notorious for patrolling their message boards and deleting any posts they deem unfit. This is complete gray area. I feel that moderators have a certain responsibility to keep their blogs in good character, but also to not restrict their posters. There is a distinct difference, however, between having a less than reputable blog, and being worthy of being sued. It's absurd that anyone would be sued over comments made by others.
If the moderator should not be held responsible, should the people commenting? This raises the question of whether Internet Service Providers should be required to divulge information about their users. This is essentially no different that phone wire-tapping (which unfortunately in recent years has become much more widespread- thank you, Patriot Act). Both of these are wrong without a proper warrant. Like phone tapping, getting information from ISPs about clients should be done on a case by case basis, and only with proper evidence. There's a reason we have these privacy laws.
All of these issues, at least in the case of Traffic-Power, stem from one more fundamental issue. Why are they suing in the first place- because of comments made on a blog. It seems they might be taking the defamation a little too seriously from some opinionated bloggers. If trade secrets were indeed being published (but from the article it does not seem like it), then they might have a case. Blogs inherently are opinions. They could be equated to editorials. Does anyone read editorials just to get the facts? I hope not. Blogs are in existence to give a perspective on issues, not just objectively tell about them- that's what news stories are for.
There were a lot of issues covered in the above article. Essentially, a Seach Engine Optimizer, Traffic-Power, was suing Aaron Wall for comments people made about the company on his blog. They were claiming defamation, and publishing of trade secrets. This raises issues of the freedom of speech on blogs, and even right to privacy of the users.
For this post several questions were posed. Most prevalent in the article is the question whether people should be held accountable for those who post on their blog. They are not the ones creating the content, they are only creating the topic. Still, though, do they have an obligation to monitor this, and make sure it's all accurate and of good character? There are some sites that certainly do this. IMDB is notorious for patrolling their message boards and deleting any posts they deem unfit. This is complete gray area. I feel that moderators have a certain responsibility to keep their blogs in good character, but also to not restrict their posters. There is a distinct difference, however, between having a less than reputable blog, and being worthy of being sued. It's absurd that anyone would be sued over comments made by others.
If the moderator should not be held responsible, should the people commenting? This raises the question of whether Internet Service Providers should be required to divulge information about their users. This is essentially no different that phone wire-tapping (which unfortunately in recent years has become much more widespread- thank you, Patriot Act). Both of these are wrong without a proper warrant. Like phone tapping, getting information from ISPs about clients should be done on a case by case basis, and only with proper evidence. There's a reason we have these privacy laws.
All of these issues, at least in the case of Traffic-Power, stem from one more fundamental issue. Why are they suing in the first place- because of comments made on a blog. It seems they might be taking the defamation a little too seriously from some opinionated bloggers. If trade secrets were indeed being published (but from the article it does not seem like it), then they might have a case. Blogs inherently are opinions. They could be equated to editorials. Does anyone read editorials just to get the facts? I hope not. Blogs are in existence to give a perspective on issues, not just objectively tell about them- that's what news stories are for.
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