This case concerned a defamatory blog post which appeared on Blogger.com, a website operated by Google. The claimant sought to make Google liable as a publisher of the defamatory statement. Despite the case having been ultimately dismissed due to there being no “real and substantial tort” (only five people were proven to have accessed the defamatory statement), the court found that - at least following the notification - Google can be liable for the defamatory statements posted on Blogger, as a publisher. It’s also worth to add that the court decided that Google could be protected in this case by the “hosting” safe harbour set out in reg. 19 of the E-Commerce Regulations 2002 (see above).
The case revolved around the liability of a blog owner for the defamatory comment posted on his website. It was held that checking the spelling and grammar of such user-generated content triggers the finding of facts and circumstances from which the existence of infringing content should have been inferred; preventing the blog owner from relying on the “hosting” safe harbour of the E-Commerce Regulations 2002 (see above).
This case was triggered by the appearance of defamatory comments on an online bulletin board, provided by the website operated by the first defendant. Apart from bringing the case against the said operator, the claimant also decided to sue the Google search engine (as a secondary defendant), due to the fact that the defamatory material could have appeared among the latter’s search results, in the form of a “snippet.” The claimant sought, among others, to obtain an injunction restraining the secondary defendant from “publishing or causing to be published or authorising to be published the same or similar words defamatory of the claimant within the jurisdiction of the court.” This request ended up being dismissed, since it was dependent on finding Google liable as a publisher, and the judge found that - in the factual...
This case saw three British ISPs (AOL, Tiscali and BT) being placed at the crosshair of publisher’s liability for defamatory posts shared through the Usenet newsgroups, due to the fact that the said ISPs provided the Internet connection to users who posted the defamatory material in question. The court found that the three ISPs cannot be regarded as publishers of the defamatory statements – instead, they should be seen as passive facilitators, lying outside of the scope of publisher’s liability.
In this case, a defamatory article was posted on the website of the Wall Street Journal Online. The claim against Dow Jones (the publisher of the WSJ) failed due to the finding that no real and substantial tort was committed (only five people were proven to have read the defamatory content, what minimised the damage to reputation), and allowing the case to proceed would constitute an abuse of process.
In the case of Godfrey v Demon Internet, a forged posting was shared through the soc.culture.thai Usenet newsgroup by someone pretending to be the claimant. The latter decided to sue the ISP operating the aforementioned newsgroup, for it did not respond to the notice of infringement made by the claimant, allowing the defamatory content to remain available for 10 days (until its automatic expiry). Demon Internet was found to be liable - it was held that as soon as an online service provider becomes aware (ie. acquires actual knowledge) of the defamatory use of its service, it becomes liable as a publisher of the defamatory information. Then, it has to remove the said content expeditiously, in order to prevent the further dissemination of the defamatory material – or incur further liability.