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(1) The Plaintiff, a teacher called Aliandra, was informed by students that Orkut hosted an allegedly defamatory "community" (a discussion forum created by users) called “I hate Aliandra". The teacher claims this community harmed her reputation. She notified Google and request the community to be taken down. Google replied that the content could not amount to defamation and that a court order would be required to take the content down. (2) The Plaintiff filed the lawsuit and requested a) an injunction to take down the community and b) damages to be paid by Google for hosting the content. Her injunction request was denied, so the community remained online. Google presented its defense. (3) Upon trial, the District Court of Minas Gerais (Tribunal de Justiça de Minas Gerais) decided the content was indeed defamatory and...

This case involved hyperlinks in an online article that directed its readers to defamatory materials. The issue is whether this constituted a publication for the purposes of defamation law. For a defamation case to succeed in Canada, the plaintiff must prove that the defamatory statement is “published”. Here, the Court held that, unless the hyperlink itself communicates defamatory meaning in the context, the act of hyperlinking is so passive that it does not amount to publication. (paras 21 & 40). That is, to satisfy the publication element, the plaintiff must prove that the intermediary had “knowing involvement in the publication of the relevant words (para 21).

This is another instance where the court applied the Warman factors (see above) to a case concerning online defamation. Here, the plaintiff brought an action against the host of a political blog and its moderators for defamatory comments posted by anonymous commenters. However, the application failed because the plaintiff could not demonstrate that the comments were defamatory and thus, could not establish a prima facie case. Therefore, interests in protecting the freedom of expression and users’ privacy rights outweighed the public benefits that may flow from granting the order.

A lower court ordered issued a third party injunction compelling removal of a blogging site from blogspot on the basis that it was clearly defamatory. The case nominally establishes a high bar for defamation-related injunctions, but does not necessarily address potential freedom of expression concerns.

(1) The plaintiff sued the operator of a message board and eight anonymous participants who allegedly posted defamatory statements. In accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure (76.03), the plaintiff sought an order requiring the intermediary to reveal the identities of those participants. (2) The court ruled that disclosure of users’ identities should not be automatic. Rather, the unknown user’s expectation of privacy and the freedom of expression must also be weighed. Four factors that should guide the court are: 1) whether the unknown users could have a reasonable expectation of anonymity given the context; 2) whether the complaint has established a prima facie case against the unknown wrongdoers and is acting in good faith; 3) whether the complaint has taken reasonable steps to identify the unknown party; and 4)...

This case involves a defamatory email and web posting written by a faculty group at York University. The plaintiff was granted a Norwich order compelling two ISPs, Bell Canada Enterprises and Rogers Communications, to disclose information about the owner of a specific IP address so that a libel action could be served. To determine whether a Norwich order should be granted in an online defamation case, the court will consider 1) whether the applicant has provided evidence sufficient to raise a valid, bona fide or reasonable claim; 2) whether the applicant has establish a relationship with the third-party from whom the information is sought, such that it establishes that the third party is somehow involved in the acts complained of; 3) whether the third party is the only practicable source of the information available; 4...