On February 19, 2009, lawyers representing Sam Sethi, a former employee of TechCrunch and former CEO of now-defunct BlogNation, sent a letter to TechCrunch co-founder Michael Arrington threatening suit "within the jurisdiction of the High Court of England and Wales, at the Royal Courts of Justice (in London, UK)" for libel. 

The basis for the suit is a series of allegedly defamatory posts on CrunchNotes (the TechCrunch blog) which stated, according to the letter, that:

• "[S]ome of [Sethi's] former writers have accused him of fraud and other crimes."
• Sethi "had threatened to kill" one of his former business associates.
• Sethi was "involved in '. . . usury, fraud even'" (quoting from a blog post by Oliver Starr).
• Sethi is "predisposed to making threats of violence and making others feel threatened by him and being thoroughly deceitful."

Sethi is also suing based upon the "posting [of] a confidential (and stolen) termsheet from [BlogNations'] VC funders," which, according to Sethi's lawyers, "seriously jeopardize[d]" the BlogNation's funding.  Sethi is asking TechCrunch to remove all posts that include allegedly false accusations about him, publish an apology, undertake "not to repeat the same or similar libels again," pay his legal costs, and donate damages to a charity or "towards fees of those unpaid editors at Blognation who had remained faithful to the end."

Michael Arrington replied to Sethi's letter through his lawyers, asserting that TechCrunch is "not susceptible to the jurisdiction of English courts" and that an English judgment would not be recognized or enforced by US courts.  He also provided evidence, mostly in the form of blog posts and comments by others, that he believes supports the veracity of the statements made in the CrunchNotes posts at issue.  TechCrunch has also offered Sethi the opportunity to submit a reply "concerning the challenged statements" that would be posted "with equal prominence to [TechCrunch's] previous posts about him."

According to TechCrunch, a lawsuit was filed on June 28, 2009. Based on third party reports, the lawsuit appears to have been filed in the United Kingdom.

Oxford Round Table, Inc. ("ORT"), a Kentucky corporation that conducts educational conferences at various colleges within Oxford University, sued Oxford lecturer Sloan Mahone for defamation and tortious interference in federal court in Kentucky.  ORT claimed that Mahone posted defamatory statements on a forum on The Chronicle of Higher Education website.  According to court documents, in these postings Mahone criticized ORT's business operations, calling it a "scam" and a "misrepresentation."  Also, Mahone allegedly sent critical emails to a colleague at Oxford and a prospective participant in one of ORT's conferences. 

After ORT filed suit, Mahone moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction.  The court granted the motion, finding that Mahone lacked the requisite minimum contacts with the State of Kentucky.

Dublin-based alternative medicine practitioner Dr. Joseph Chikelue Obi sent a cease-and-desist letter through his "adviser" to Netcetera, the web hosting company for Dr. Andy Lewis (a.k.a Le Canard Noir), who provides skeptical commentary on alternative medicine on his Quackometer blog. The letter complainted about two posts -- "Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery" published September 28, 2006, and "Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss" published October 12, 2006.  These posts were critical of Obi and the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, of which Obi is the provost.

Obi alleged that the posts defamed him and the Royal College. The letter threatened to seek one million pounds per day in damages if Netcetera refused to take the offending posts down. The basis for this large sum of damages was not specified.

Netcetera complied with Obi's demands, but the articles have been reposted by other internet users at various locations, including No Nonsense!  Fellow skeptical blogger Orac is also calling for readers to repost the items.

A similar course of events played out three months earlier, when the Society of Homeopaths successfully demanded that one of Lewis's articles be taken down from Quackometer. See the CMLP database entry, Society of Homeopaths v. Netcetera. Lewis now says that he is looking for a new web hosting company.

Universal Communication Systems ("UCS") and its CEO, Michael Zwebner, sued Lycos, its Spanish parent company Terra Networks, and several anonymous users of Lycos's Raging Bull forum after the anonymous users created a forum about UCS and criticized the company there. UCS sought an injunction requiring Lycos to delete the UCS forum and to prevent it from ever being recreated.

In its original complaint, filed in federal court in Florida, UCS invoked claims of consumer fraud under Massachusetts law, dilution of trade name under Florida law, and a federal "cyberstalking" statute. Lycos moved to dismiss UCS's claims or, alternatively, to transfer the case to Massachusetts federal court.  UCS moved for a preliminary injunction, which the court denied.  UCS amended and resubmitted its motion for a preliminary injunction.

Before ruling on the motions before it, the court stayed discovery in the case.  UCS, however, initiated a new, second action in Florida federal court, which made largely identical claims. Lycos moved to consolidate the two cases.  The court instead granted Lycos' earlier motion to transfer the venue of the first action to Massachusetts.  The court hearing the second action soon transferred it to Massachusetts as well, and the Massachusetts court consolidated the two cases. 

At this point, UCS's complaint alleged four causes of action: (1) violation of Florida securities laws; (2) violation of a federal criminal statute prohibiting harassing communications (47 U.S.C. § 223); (3) trademark dilution under Florida law; and (4) violation of a Florida "cyberstalking" statute. In Massachusetts, Lycos moved to dismiss the claims against it, arguing that it was protected from liability for third party content under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230"). Terra also moved to dismiss, claiming that the Massachusetts federal court had no jurisdiction over it, but even if it did, UCS had not shown Terra liable for the acts of its subsidiary.

The Massachusetts district court granted both motions, ruling that CDA 230 barred the Florida securities and cyberstalking claims, that the Florida dilution claim was a defamation claim in disguise and thus also barred by CDA 230, and that 47 U.S.C. § 223 did not create a private cause of action.

UCS moved to file an amended complaint against Lycos and Terra, but the court denied the motion, ruling that the defendants would still be immune from the claims in the proposed amended complaint.  The court, however, did allow UCS to add the anonymous forum users to the lawsuit.  UCS filed its amended complaint with claims of fraud against the users, and moved for entry of separate and final judgment, so that it might withdraw its claims against Lycos and Terra while retaining its new claims against the anonymous posters.  One of the anonymous posters, Roberto Villasenor, answered UCS's complaint and filed counterclaims against UCS, as well as crossclaims against the other posters. The Massachusetts court denied UCS's motion for entry of separate and final judgment, finding that it lacked jurisdiction over Villasenor and the other anonymous posters.

UCS appealed these decisions to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.  The First Circuit affirmed the lower courts rulings and dismissed the case.  It decided that CDA 230 granted immunity to Lycos and Terra on the Florida securities and cyberstalking claims.  It also affirmed that 47 U.S.C. § 223 did not create and private cause of action and that use of UCS's name in the Raging Bull forum did not create trademark liability. Finally, it agreed that, without the claims against Lycos and Terra, the court lacked jurisdiction to hear UCS's claims against the anonymous users.