Illinois High Court: Comcast Must Reveal Anonymous Commenter

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If you think you are anonymous on the internet, you'd better think again.

The decision comes as concerns rise about potentially damaging online comments made anonymously, and affirms what many legal experts say seems to be lost on online commenters: Their anonymity doesn't protect them if their comments could be considered defamatory.
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Enter the ignorance plea when someone simply claims that it was another person connected to their wireless router. Seems so easy to dodge any potential litigation as a result of online comments.
 
Ieyasu said:
Enter the ignorance plea when someone simply claims that it was another person connected to their wireless router. Seems so easy to dodge any potential litigation as a result of online comments.
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You can try that but the burden of proof for civil cases is much much lower than criminal cases (and defamation or libel are civil crimes) ... to compare them more numerically, a criminal case typically needs 90%+ certainty of guilt while a civil case only needs 51% ... those are long and dangerous odds to play ;) (the upside of a civil conviction is that it will just bankrupt you, but you won't go to jail)
 
Nice, go ahead and provide the subscriber data.

Now prove it was the subscriber that did it lol. Have fun.
 
bds1904 said:
Nice, go ahead and provide the subscriber data.

Now prove it was the subscriber that did it lol. Have fun.
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If they were that confident of that defense then they would let Comcast release their name ... it is much cheaper to defend a standard civil claim than to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court ... also, the lower burden of proof in civil cases can be trickier in a jury trial, especially if they don't understand something like IP addresses ... the person would need to have a squeaky clean history (if there was any other evidence that they did it, including social media posts, it could tip the scales enough to give the 51% needed to rule against them)
 
This is not just an anonymous IP copyrighted downloader type case, the user very likely had to register on the site and the axiom that an IP address does not equal a user has not been applied in this context.

When you register as a user and confirm your email as is usually required, you cannot just claim someone accessed your open wireless. :eek:

Clearly the user is concerned, as he or she has an attorney representing them in the case.
 
RealBeast said:
This is not just an anonymous IP copyrighted downloader type case, the user very likely had to register on the site and the axiom that an IP address does not equal a user has not been applied in this context.

When you register as a user and confirm your email as is usually required, you cannot just claim someone accessed your open wireless. :eek:

Clearly the user is concerned, as he or she has an attorney representing them in the case.
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The article says it was an anonymous user. That makes sense, since they're not going after the site to release the email/details.

Many sites, especially news, allow anonymous (no reg) comments.
 
I think the lawyer for the user might have a little bit of a stretch with "There are certainly First Amendment issues and defamation issues which should bring this to their attention," ... defamation has never been considered a first amendment right and I am not sure that SCOTUS is going to want to insert themselves into this (unless there are conflicting regional rulings on this) ... also, there is no guarantee that they would rule this is protected speech (I suspect it highly likely that they would rule on releasing the info and let the civil court system sort out the guilt and/or damages)
 
kbrickley said:
I think the lawyer for the user might have a little bit of a stretch with "There are certainly First Amendment issues and defamation issues which should bring this to their attention," ... defamation has never been considered a first amendment right and I am not sure that SCOTUS is going to want to insert themselves into this (unless there are conflicting regional rulings on this) ... also, there is no guarantee that they would rule this is protected speech (I suspect it highly likely that they would rule on releasing the info and let the civil court system sort out the guilt and/or damages)
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A requirement of a defamation case is proof it damaged their public reputation and/or caused fininacial loss. They would have to prove it caused damage to his career.
 
bds1904 said:
A requirement of a defamation case is proof it damaged their public reputation and/or caused fininacial loss. They would have to prove it caused damage to his career.
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Correct, but it has to go to trial for this determination to be made and the user needs to be identified for it to go to trial ... it is not for the SCOTUS to prevent the justice system from sorting this out (which is how I would expect them to rule) ... there is also a big difference between protected free speech and defamation

For example, "Person XYZ sucks" (protected free speech) ... "Person XYZ is a child molester" (possible defamation and not protected) ... "Person XYZ is a thief" (probably protected) ... "Person XYZ embezzled money from his last job" (possible defamation and not protected) ... too many people think the internet is a license to do whatever they want (that isn't true and I don't think we would want it to be true)
 
This person must have some serious bucks if he's taking this to the SCOTUS. Next time he/she may want to use a logless VPN to post anonymous trash.
 
nilepez said:
This person must have some serious bucks if he's taking this to the SCOTUS. Next time he/she may want to use a logless VPN to post anonymous trash.
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This tells me that he/she was likely connected to someone the 'victim' was running against.
 
So did the politician actually have some sort of "harm" from this comment towards his image? Defamation requires that, although this is just a case to see if he can actually know who it was so they can sue.
 
Spidey329 said:
The article says it was an anonymous user. That makes sense, since they're not going after the site to release the email/details.

Many sites, especially news, allow anonymous (no reg) comments.
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I don't think they meant 'anonymous' user, I think they meant non-representative user name in general. This case it was Fuboy.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So did the politician actually have some sort of "harm" from this comment towards his image? Defamation requires that, although this is just a case to see if he can actually know who it was so they can sue.
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They said in the article that proving actual defamation might be difficult as the politician in question won the election ... however, that case can't be brought while the user remains anonymous (and sorting out the anonymity question now will allow speedier resolution in the future) ... and proving that actual defamation occurred is not required for this case as this case is strictly about when a user can try and hide behind anonymity and when they can't
 
The guy spent 30k pursuing the online poster. That alone makes me suspicious that he could be guilty as accused. Anyone that would spend that much time and money on an accusation is probably hiding something, at least in my opinion. If someone accused me of something like that I'd just point out that it's a baseless claim, invite the person to come forward, have a pint of beer, and go to bed. His actions to go so far to hunt someone down make me suspicious - imagine how your life would be if you went on a vendetta after anyone who ever called you a name.
 
Grahamkracka said:
This tells me that he/she was likely connected to someone the 'victim' was running against.
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I thought of that too...which means they could just have someone else bankrolling the fight, though honestly, I would never put much weight behind an attack by an anonymous poster on a message board (even if it's a newspaper's message board).
 
canna said:
The guy spent 30k pursuing the online poster. That alone makes me suspicious that he could be guilty as accused. Anyone that would spend that much time and money on an accusation is probably hiding something, at least in my opinion. If someone accused me of something like that I'd just point out that it's a baseless claim, invite the person to come forward, have a pint of beer, and go to bed. His actions to go so far to hunt someone down make me suspicious - imagine how your life would be if you went on a vendetta after anyone who ever called you a name.
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I doubt that. If you're guilty, you say if it was real, the person wouldn't be hiding behind an a fake/anonymous name. This would have gone away a long time ago. Let's face it, we just heard about this because of the court case, but I suspect most of us never heard about the original attack.
 
canna said:
The guy spent 30k pursuing the online poster. That alone makes me suspicious that he could be guilty as accused. Anyone that would spend that much time and money on an accusation is probably hiding something, at least in my opinion. If someone accused me of something like that I'd just point out that it's a baseless claim, invite the person to come forward, have a pint of beer, and go to bed. His actions to go so far to hunt someone down make me suspicious - imagine how your life would be if you went on a vendetta after anyone who ever called you a name.
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I suspect this is funded by other sources than just the individual ... since it has already gone to the Appeals court and been ruled in the politician's favor there is now a precedent set for that entire region ... if the SCOTUS does decide to review and rule on this the precedent will be for the entire country ... there are big stakes at play here that affect many cases so I am sure there are multiple parties wanting to support this (on both sides) ... the article indicated that this isn't the first suit on web anonymity, but if it can rise to the Supreme Court it might be the last (if we had a functional Congress they might have sorted this sort of question out on their own, but clarifying what is protected and unprotected free speech isn't even on their road map)
 
canna said:
The guy spent 30k pursuing the online poster. That alone makes me suspicious that he could be guilty as accused. Anyone that would spend that much time and money on an accusation is probably hiding something, at least in my opinion. If someone accused me of something like that I'd just point out that it's a baseless claim, invite the person to come forward, have a pint of beer, and go to bed. His actions to go so far to hunt someone down make me suspicious - imagine how your life would be if you went on a vendetta after anyone who ever called you a name.
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Politicians are typically not poor people, 30k could be a drop in the bucket for him. *shrug*
 
This is why when you want to libel someone online you do it from a public access computer. :D
 
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