Recent UK Developments in the Law of defamation on the Internet

The case of Totalise PLC -v- Motley Fool LTD, decided in February 2001, represents a significant progression in the law following the Godfrey -v- Demon case. This case also concerns the anonymous posting of defamatory statements on a web-based discussion board. The author of the comments used a "nome de web". The plaintiffs sought an order from the court requiring the defendant ISP to release information it held that could lead to the identification of the certain "Z Dust"; the anonymous author. For example unmasking the IP address of the computer from which the postings originated. Unlike the defendants in the Godfrey case, Motley Fool Ltd responded quickly to the plaintiff's solicitors letter alerting them to the existence of the offending comments on their discussion board. The "Z Dust" postings were removed and his access rights to the discussion group were revoked within the same day of receipt of the letter. "Z Dust" persisted in making offensive remarks, having been readmitted to the discussion group. He was subsequently permanently barred from the site. By this time "Z Dust" had posted in the region of ninety offensive messages concerning the plaintiffs.

The defendant ISP sought to resist the order to disclose the required personal information claiming that they could not do so; as to comply would be in breach of Data Protection legislation and would further breach the terms and conditions of the service's privacy statement. They contended that they had acted properly in denying the requests to disclose the information, as the plaintiffs merely wished to use the information as a basis upon which to get legal advice. The defendants claimed that this sort of "fishing expedition" could not justify breaching their privacy statement and or Data Protection legislation.

It was held by the court that the statements were clearly defamatory. Justice Owen commented that "Z Dust" had waged an intensive campaign of vilification against the claimant. Therefore, the information being sought was not merely a fishing expedition, it was clear that a tort had actually been committed. The only problem facing the plaintiff in bringing a claim was simply the inability to discover the true identity of the author of the offensive comments. The court referred the defence to section 35 of the Data Protection Act, 1998;

(1) Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions, where the disclosure is required by or under any enactment, by any rule of law or by the order of a court.

(2) Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is necessary-

• (a) for the purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings (including prospective legal proceedings), or
• (b) for the purpose of obtaining legal advice,

or is otherwise necessary for the purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.

Justice Owen found that it is not necessary that the claimant be committed to legal proceedings against a tortfeasor in order to avail of the above exemption.

The defence also argued that they were protected from releasing such information under section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act, 1981,

"No court may require a person to disclose, nor is any person guilty of contempt of court for refusing to disclose the source of information contained in a publication for which he is responsible, lest it be established to the satisfaction of the court that disclosure is necessary in the interests of justice or national security or for the prevention of disorder or crime."

It was held by the court that this enactment was not applicable to this case. The intention behind this provision is to resolve the tension that may arise between the public interest in a free press and enabling the proper function of the justice system. Section 10 is clearly designed to protect the journalist's sources. The defendant ISP took no responsibility for what was posted on their boards and thus could not avail of this protection.

The court ordered the defendants to disclose the required information. While this case may seem like a further blow to ISPs it is in fact an affirmation of the position that if they act expeditiously once they are notified of the presence of offensive content on their servers and remove it, they will effectively avoid liability. The case also gives the clearest indication to those who wish to defame, that they cannot do so with impunity behind the screen of anonymity made possible by the use of websites on the Internet.

If you are suspicious about pornography being downloaded and kept on your computer hard drives by other members of your family, then the time has arrived for you to investigate. Media Detective is just the right tool to help you find out what you need to know.

Media Detective is the perfect pornography remover software package for cleaning porn from your computer's hard drives. Media Detective is a software utility that has been developed to help clean hard drives of offensive files, including pornographic material, undesirable images and movies. Using intelligent image and video scanning techniques, Media Detective can easily scan through the images and movies on your hard disk drives, checking each and identifying those containing nudity through statistical and analytical methods.

Files that then appear to have the characteristics of a pornographic image or movie are shown for user review, so that unwanted items can be cleaned from your disk. Not just a cookie eraser, Media Detective cleans out offensive material that cookie cleaners completely ignore.

There are many tracks eraser programs available which purport to remove pornography. But they only try to remove evidence of activity, and do actually investigate media files to determine if they contain nudity, and allow for their deletion. To actually remove porn the software must do some kind of porn scan and then invoke a porn remover pass to delete files.

The porn eraser functions of Media Detective are required to do a proper PC cleanup; cookie cleaners will not leave your pc cleaner of media files than before. Internet eraser and internet cleanup tools only serve to leave internet history cleaner. Various other hard drive clean up tools only really delete cache entries etc. leaving actual pornography on the computer.

And most hard drive cleanup tools leave the difficult task of effectively scanning for real porn files to software like Media Detective. It is guaranteed to leave your hard drive cleaner, to erase pornography and give the most effective disk cleanup available. No other disk cleaner software can delete pornography and delete porn as effectively.

Cookie eraser tools again only address a part of the problem. Cookie cleaner software will not clean up pornography in the true sense of the word, just signs that it has at some time been viewed. Therefore a computer clean up can only be done effectively by a computer cleaner like media detective. You can use it to safely clean up porn references, clean pornography directories and clean porn files. This will leave you with a clean hard drive and a clean computer.

CLICK HERE for more information, and the free downloadable demo!

Internet Laws Protecting your child from Internet pornography and sexual predators online. ... users access to sexually explicit material considered obscene for minors. ...

COPA Commission ... Witnesses appearing before the COPA Commission testified that distribution over the Internet of obscene material, child pornography, and harmful to ...

Indecency on the Internet ... new prohibitions on "obscenity" and "indecency" on the Internet have focused ... and " obscene " speech on the radio did not violate the First Amendment. ...