I am a also member of an aquarium/tropical fish mailing list and there is sort of an infamous lawsuit in progress about negative comments made via an internet bulletin board that I though some of you might find interesting. (and no, I am not suggesting anything that has to do with Brin-L!)
In a nutshell: several members of this certain aquatic mailing list made remarks about the service that they received from an internet pet supply company. These remarks were only their personal opinion about the service that they had personally received. The owner of this internet pet supply company has now sued the owner of the website/ mailing list, several participants of the mailing list, CompuServe, the Long Island Better Business Bureau, and anyone linking to the website for $15,000,000 (yes, 15 MILLION). Reading through the website and the history of the dispute (see link below) , it is interesting to see how a company would rather spend thousands of dollars pursuing legal action rather than spend hundreds to rectify the complaints made by the few unhappy people who purchased merchandise from them via the internet. Anyway, the relevance here is that this case could potentially set a precedent for free speech (or lack of) over the internet. Personally, I think that the lawsuit will be dismissed, or at least I hope that it is. Otherwise the courts could become clogged with lawsuits based on any real or perceived negative comments made via the internet. However, even if this is dismissed, at the very least, the defendants have had to retain legal counsel, and I am sure that was not cheap - especially being an out of state lawsuit. http://petsforum.com/psw/Default.html ___________________________________________ Gary L. Nunn Delaware Ohio "When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." -African proverb
