Ontario Court Orders Rogers And Bell To Identify
In August 2009 a New York judge ordered Google to reveal the identity of a blogger for the site “Skanks in NYC” who may have been making some defamatory comments about a Canadian Vogue model, Liskula Cohen. Cohen had initiated a lawsuit to find out the identity of the blogger. The blogger, Rosemary Port is now looking to commence an action against Google.
Port stated that she had believed her privacy rights were being protected by Google who was initially defending the suit.
This month in Canada an Ontario Superior Court Judge has ordered that Rogers and Bell identify an individual that sent a defamatory email to the President of York University.
The Judge was satisfied that the plaintiff had established a case for defamation in good faith and that Bell and Rogers despite being innocent were, “implicated in the alleged defamation because their services were used for publication.”
In terms of the privacy argument the Judge concludes, “the internet service customer(s) who published the communications could not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to the use of the internet for the purpose of publishing defamatory statements.”
Looks like this means you can’t hide behind privacy arguments when you’re saying bad things.
The Judge actually cites the Cohen v. Google case in regards to notice to the individual whose identity may be revealed. “It may be that in an appropriate case the internet service provider should be required to give notice to its customer for the purpose of enabling the customer to make submissions as to whether the order should be granted.”
This decision will likely have future implications in cases involving disclosure in all practice areas regarding the internet.
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