The Los Angeles Times reported that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles has begun issuing subpoenas in the Megan Meier case, the Missouri teenager who committed suicide after a "boy" she met on MySpace abruptly turned on her and ended their relationship. According to the Los Angeles Times, the boy was allegedly Lori Drew, a neighbor who had pretended to be 16-year-old "Josh Evans" to gain Megan's trust.

According to anonymous sources who spoke to the LATimes:

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, however, are exploring the possibility of charging Drew with defrauding the MySpace social networking website by allegedly creating the false account, according to the sources, who insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The sources said prosecutors are looking at federal wire fraud and cyber fraud statutes as they consider the case. Prosecutors believe they have jurisdiction because MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills, the sources said.

Update:

05/15/2008- The grand jury indicted Lori Drew.See the related threat entry, United States v. Drew, for more information.

On June 14, 2007, two prominent lawyers in Seattle, WA filed a class action lawsuit against Avvo Inc., the operator of Avvo.com, a website that profiles and rates lawyers and allows users to submit reviews of lawyers they have worked with. Plaintiffs also sued Mark Britton, Avvo's CEO, and 25 anonymous "John Doe" users of the site.

The lawsuit alleges that Avvo's rating system, which plaintiffs claim resulted in their receiving an unreasonably low score, violates the Washington Consumer Protection Act. They also allege that Avvo purports to be objective but is subject to manipulation, cannot produce a reliable system, contains inherent inconsistencies, does not provide a reliable benchmark for assessing lawyer competence, encourages consumer trust in a fallible system, allows attorneys to manipulate their ratings, promotes qualities of attorneys in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and does not accurately report in the categories where it purports to do so. As a result, they assert that Avvo has damaged their reputation and good will. Moreover, by filing a class action lawsuit, the two lawyers are disputing not only their own rankings on the site, but are also challenging the accuracy and validity of the mathematical algorithm used by Avvo to rate and compare attorneys.

On June 28, 2007, defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, which the court granted on December 18. In dismissing the complaint without leave to amend, Judge Lasnik wrote that the ratings on the site are protected statements of opinion, noting that "defendants' rating is not only defensible, it is virtually impossible to prove wrong." While evidencing clear skepticism about lawyer ratings generally, the judge also took the plaintiffs to task for bringing the lawsuit:

[P]laintiffs Browne and Wenokur want to make a federal case out of the number assigned to them because (a) it could harm their reputation, (b) it could cost them customers/fees, or (c) it could mislead the lawyer-hiring public into retaining poor lawyers or bypassing better lawyers. To the extent that their lawsuit has focused a spotlight on how ludicrous the rating of attorneys (and judges) has become, more power to them. To the extent that they seek to prevent the dissemination of opinions regarding attorneys and judges, however, the First Amendment precludes their cause of action

Judge Lasnik also rejected the plaintiffs' claim under the Washington Consumer Protection Act, concluding that the rankings are not commercial enough to fall under the act and any damages resulting from consumer misinformation are too speculative to support a claim.

As to Avvo’s possible defense under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the judge noted that "[p]laintiffs have disavowed any claim based on content that Avvo obtained from a third-party and the Court need not consider this defense further."

43rd State Blues: Democracy for Idaho describes itself as a "website of, by and for Democrats and those who lean towards Democratic, progressive causes." The website offers what it calls a "team blog" service -- users who register for an account can maintain their own personal blog on the site. On of the site's users, going by the pseudonym "Tom Paine," published a post in April 2007 about Melaleuca, Inc. and its CEO Frank VanderSloot. VanderSloot and Melaleuca objected to the post, which, according to court documents, discussed rumors about questionable payments made to a US Senator. On April 6, counsel for Melaleuca sent a cease-and-desist letter to an individual believed to be the administrator of 43rd State Blues, claiming that the post was defamatory and demanding its removal within 24 hours. The next day, an anonymous individual with the user name "d2" posted the cease-and-desist letter on the website.

In late April, Melaleuca sent a DMCA takedown notice to the hosting provider for 43rd State Blues, demanding that the hosting provider remove the April 6 cease-and-desist letter from the website. The hosting provider complied, but Melaleuca was not content to stop there. It served administrative subpoenas issued pursuant to section 512(h) of the DMCA first on the hosting provider, and then on the "reseller" of the account associated with 43rd State Blues. These subpoenas asked for documents and information identitying "those persons who posted the infringing content identified in the Take-Down Notice [sent to the hosting provider], including but not limited to those persons using or associated with the screen names 'd2' or 'Tom Paine' as found at the website 43rdstateblues.com." The hosting provider informed Melaleuca that it had no information other than the name of the reseller of the account. When the reseller recieved a subpoena, 43SB.COM, LLC ("43SB"), the actual owner of the site, contacted Melaleuca through counsel and asked that further communications be directed to his office.

Melaleuca then obtained and served the same DMCA subpoena on 43SB. 43SB filed a motion to quash the subpoena on June 25, 2007, arguing that the subpoena did not comply with the requirements of the DMCA and violated the First Amendment. At oral argument, counsel for 43SB narrowed its objections to two points: (1) that the cease-and-desist letter lacked the originality necessary for copyright protection; and (2) that upholding the subpoena would violate Tom Paine's First Amendment right to engage in anonymous speech because there was not a sufficient connection between Paine and the posting of the cease-and-desist letter.

On December 7, the district court adopted the Report and Recommendation of the magistrate judge (to whom the motion had been referred for decision). The Report recommended that the court grant the motion to quash with respect to Tom Paine, but deny the motion with respect to d2. The magistrate judge rejected 43SB's argument that the cease-and-desist letter was insufficiently original to garner copyright protection, concluding that Melaleuca's registration of the letter with the Copyright Office was a sufficient indication of ownership of a valid copyright for a DMCA subpoena to issue. Since d2 had allegedly posted the cease-and-desist letter, the court upheld discovery of his/her identity. With regard to Tom Paine, however, the magistrate judge concluded that using a DMCA subpoena to uncover his/her identity would be improper because there was no connection between Paine and the alleged infringement (i.e., posting the cease-and-desist letter).

Neither party submitted objections to the magistrate judge's Report, thereby apparently waiving the righ to raise factual and/or legal objections to it on appeal.

Dendrite International, a company that developed and serviced software for the pharmaceutical industry, brought a John Doe lawsuit in New Jersey state court against fourteen unnamed defendants for critical messages they posted on Yahoo! message boards. Dendrite claimed the messages were defamatory and revealed trade secrets, and they sought permission from the court to take discovery from Yahoo regarding the identity of certain of the anonymous posters.

The trial court allowed Dendrite to conduct limited discovery to find out the identities of John Does 1 and 2, who were current or former employees of the company, but rejected its request for an order compelling Yahoo to identify John Doe 3.

Dendrite appealed, and the New Jersey appellate court affirmed the lower court's ruling. In its opinion, the court set out guidelines for lower courts to follow when faced with a request for an order compelling an ISP to reveal the identity of an anonymous Internet poster. The court developed a five-part test: (1) the plaintiff must make efforts to notify the anonymous poster and allow a reasonable time for him/her to respond; (2) the plaintiff must identify the exact statements made by the poster; (3) the complaint must set forth a prima facie cause of action; (4) the plaintiff must bring forth sufficient evidence for each element of its claim; and (5) the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity.

Applying the standard to the facts of the case, the appellate court held that Dendrite had failed to produce sufficient evidence for each element of its defamation claim, because it had not produced evidence of harm resulting from John Doe 3's statements.

Facebook terminated the profile of Jon Swift, a blogger writing under a pseudonym, for violating its terms of use prohibition on registering a profile under a fake name. Swift wrote about the profile termination and posted the email (from Aubrey, a Facebook customer service rep) on his blog, sparking discussion about the incident in the blogosphere.

In criticizing Facebook, Swift wrote:

By banning bloggers who use pseudonyms Facebook has declared war on the blogosphere. More and more bloggers have been using Facebook as a social networking tool, but how useful will it be if so many bloggers will be left out.

A Facebook group named "Let Jon Swift Back Into Facebook" sprang up, and bloggers began writing in support of Swift. A few hours later, Swift received another email from Facebook restoring the account. Jerry from Facebook Customer Service wrote that the account was not a violation of the ban on fake profiles:

[S]ince others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don't appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these Terms.

In mid-2005, Mobilisa, Inc., a Washington company that provides wireless and mobile communication systems to government and military clients, filed a John Doe lawsuit in state court in Washington.

According to a court opinion in related litigation in Arizona, the dispute arose out of a June 21, 2005 email from Nelson Ludlow, the founder and chief executive of Mobilisa, to Shara Smith, who was having a personal relationship with Ludlow and was not employed by Mobilisa. Six days after Ludlow sent the email, members of Mobilisa's management team received an email from an anonymous sender with an address from "theanonymousemail.com," which is owned by The Suggestion Box, Inc., an Arizona corporation. The anonymous email contained the contents of Ludlow's email to Smith and the subject line: "Is this a company you want to work for?"

Mobilisa filed a lawsuit in Washington State, asserting that an anonymous defendant or defendants violated two federal statutes that make it illegal to "hack" electronic communications. The crux of the claim was that the anonymous defendant(s) accessed Mobilisa's protected computer systems and email accounts without or in excess of authorization.

In August 2005, Mobilisa filed an application in Arizona Superior Court requesting the court to issue a subpoena compelling The Suggestion Box to disclose the identity of the person who used its service to send the anonymous email. The court initially granted the request, but then vacated its discovery order when The Suggestion Box objected in December 2005. In this ruling, the court adopted the standard set out in Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del. 2005), to decide whether the identity of the anonymous defendant would be unmasked. The court found that Mobilisa had not satisfied the Cahill standard, but allowed the company to supplement its application. The court also ordered The Suggestion Box to notify its email account holder of Mobilisa's request for a subpoena.

In February 2006, counsel for The Suggestion Box notified the court that, with The Suggestion Box's consent, it would be representing the anonymous defendant in the matter as well. Through counsel, the anonymous defendant objected to Mobilisa's discovery request and asserted in an affidavit that he did not access or obtain the Ludlow email through Mobilisa's computers. Later that month, the court granted Mobilisa permission to conduct the requested discovery, ruling that the company had made a sufficient showing to meet the Cahill standard.

The anonymous defendant and The Suggestion Box appealed. On November 27, 2007, the Arizona appellate court remanded the case to the trial court for further consideration, holding that the lower court had applied the wrong standard. The court adopted the standard set forth in Dendrite Int'l, Inc. v. Doe, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2001). Under that standard, the lower court was required not only to apply the "summary judgment" standard from Cahill, but to determine additionally whether the balance of the parties' competing interests favored disclosure. The court upheld the trial court's earlier determination that Mobilisa had produced sufficient evidence to survive a motion for summary judgment.

Update:

2/13/2008 - Mobilisa moved to withdraw its subpoena and dismiss the action pursuant to a joint stipulation of the parties

3/17/2008 - The court dismissed the action.