Landmark Education is a for-profit company engaged in the business of making "education programs" available to the general public and corporations, on subjects including communication, time management, and productivity. Its basic program is "The Forum" -- a three day/one evening seminar directed at "enhancing communication, creativity, and productivity for participants." Participants in the Forum may and are urged to take additional seminars given by Landmark and to recruit new participants for Landmark programs.

Rick Ross runs nonprofit websites, www.rickross.com , www.culteducation.com, and www.cultnews.com, through his non-profit entity, the Rick Ross Institute of New Jersey. The websites provide information to the public about cults and other controversial groups. On the website, Ross solicits contributions and sells his books and multimedia materials. Ross also operates a for-profit business "de-programming" the victims of cults, which is advertised on his sites.

Ross included Landmark on his list of organizations refered to as "controversial groups, some called 'cults," which included organizations such as the Aryan Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.

Visitors to Ross's sites posted various anonymous "visitor comments" critical of Landmark that allegedly gave the impression that Landmark's programs are cult-like and present risks of physical or mental harm to participants. Other comments accused Landmark of "hypnotizing" and "braninwashing" participants, attempting "cult recruitment" and "mind control." Others indicated that the Landmark Forum "used bright fluorescent lighting with no windows, didn't allow food or drink in the room, and required such long hours," and that participants in the Landmark Forum who wanted to leave were met with "guilt, manipulation and implied threats" and those who did leave were "harassed" by Landmark representatives seeking to convince them to return. The sites contained a disclaimer displayed at the bottom of the visitor comments pages indicating that "the Rick Ross Institute, its Advsiory Board and/or Rick Ross do not necessarily endorse or support any of the views expressed within the documents, articles, reports, and testimonies archivied within this website, with the exception of those specifically so attributed."

Ross's sites also posted anonymously authored "personal stories" detailing unpleasant experiences that befell the authors or someone close to them during their participation in one of Landmark's programs. Some of these personal stories had provacative titles, including "This cannot be healthy emotionally" and "Landmark Education destroyed my life -- from the Forum to the psych ward." These personal stories included statements to the effect that Landmark's programs make a "deliberate assault on your mind," are a "form of mind control," and have "cult attributes."

The websites also hosted a number of articles by third-party authors concerning Landmark, with titles like "Brain Wash," "Mindbreakers," and "Microsoft Paid for Culty Clinics," which had been previously published in other publications.

Additionally, visitors to the websites' forum sections, writing under psuedonyms, posted a number of critical comments accusing Landmark of mind control, brainwashing, and the like. The websites posted rules relating to the forums, stating "the moderators of this forum will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, but it is impossible to review every message. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of this forum, Cult Education.com, Rick Ross.com and/or developers of bulletin software, will be held responsible for the content of any message."

Ross's websites also included links to other websites containing negative content relating to Landmark. The links were accompanied by a disclaimer: "The Rick A. Ross Institute, its Advisory Board and/or Rick Ross do not necessarily endorse or support any of the views expressed within the linked websites listed at the Links page of this website."

At the time of the lawsuit, apparently a search for "Landmark Education" on Google produced Ross's websites on the results list.

Ross also allegedly made several statements to the news media radio shows, indicating that certain of Landmark's methods were "cult-like" and that participants of Landmark's programs had suffered negative mental health effects.

In June 2004, Landmark sued Ross and the Ross Institute in United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, asserting claims of product disparagement, tortious interference with ongoing and propspective business relations, trademark disparagement under the Lanham Act, consumer fraud and unfair competition under New Jersey law, and prima facie tort.

Ross and the Institute filed an answer in September 2004 without moving to dismiss. In it, they asserted various defenses, including that the statements were statements of opinion, the fair comment privilege, and lack of actual malice.

The details are not clear, but Landmark appears to have voluntarily dismissed the case in December 2005.

Paul McMann, a Massachusetts real estate developer, sued the anonymous operator of an Internet "gripe site" about him. The website contained a photograph of Mr. McMann, the statement that he "turned lives upside down," and a suggestion to "be afraid, be very afraid." The website announced that it would soon be updated with specific evidence of McMann's alleged misdealings. McMann claimed that the unknown party operating the website violated his statutory and common law right of privacy, infringed his common-law copyright, and committed defamation. McMann sought to subpoena ISPs to discover the identity of the website operator.

The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because McMann asserted only state-law claims and did not identify the citizenship of the anonymous defendant. The court observed that diversity of citizenship between McMann and the ISPs that he sought to subpoena could not bestow subject-matter jurisdiction on the court. The court stated in the alternative that it would dismiss the underlying case for failure to state a claim. Relying on Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del.2005), an important case from the Delaware Supreme Court, the court opined that First Amendment protections for anonymous speech requires courts to impose a heightened preliminary burden on plaintiffs seeking to discover the identity of anonymous posters.

The court concluded that McMann could not meet this heightened burden because his complaint failed to even state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Specifically, the court held that the unknown website operator's publishing of a description of McMann's business activity and distributing a publicly available photograph did not impinge McMann's statutory right of privacy as a matter of law. It also found that McMann could not recover for misappropriation of his likeness because the website operator had not used his photograph for a commercial use, but rather for purposes of criticism. The court also held that Massachusetts does not recognize a common law cause of action for false light invasion of privacy, and that McMann's common law copyright claim was preempted by federal copyright law. Finally, the court indicated that McMann's defamation claim was fatally flawed because the statements at issue were non-actionable personal opinions that could not be proven true or false. McMann v. Doe, 460 F.Supp.2d 259 (D.Mass. 2006).

In June 2005, Fisher & Phillips LLP, an Atlanta employment law firm, sued 5 anonymous bloggers for defamation, false light invasion of privacy, and interference with business and contractual relations. The complaint did not identify the allegedly defamatory statements with any specificity and did not name the websites on which they appeared.

After failing to identify or serve the defendants, Fisher & Phillips voluntarily dismissed the suit without prejudice in November 2005.

An anonymous blogger posted the entire contents of the New York Post's Page Six column on a blog without advertisements. On July 8, 2005, counsel for News America (the parent company of the Post) sent Google (the parent company of Blogger) a takedown notice pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In the letter, counsel for News America asserted that the blog's use of Page Six content constituted copyright infringement and requested that Google remove or disable access to the blog. Counsel also requested that Google disclose contact information for the blogger. Google disabled access to the blog, but did not respond to the informal request to disclose identity of the Page Six blogger.

On August 4, 2005, News America sought a subpoena in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to compel disclosure of the blogger's identity. The docket indicates that News America served the subpoena on Google on September 14, 2005. The docket reflects no further action after that date, and it is unclear whether Google was able to disclose the identity of the blogger.

A group of former school employees started a website called Guajome Underground to rally school students, parents, and current and former employees to remove the school superintendent. The school claims that it discovered numerous instances of unauthorized access to a school database containing confidential information about students, including grades. The school alleges that confidential information, including the grades of a student, were posted to a "restricted" forum section of guajomeunderground.

The school sued a former student, Beau DuPerry, and a then-current employee, David McCulloch, for accessing the database and posting the confidential information, allegedly in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and provisions of California criminal law that provide for a private cause of action. DuPerry settled and agreed to cooperate with the school. The school moved to amend its complaint in November 2006, seeking to add others defendants who allegedly had access to the forum, as well as a civil conspiracy claim and a breach of contract claim (against McCulloch only). The court granted in part and denied in part the motion to amend the complaint (it appears that the court did not permit Guajome to add additional defendants). McCulloch moved for summary judgment in July 2007, and the court denied that motion in August 2007.

Updates:

7/13/2006 - Guajome Park settled with Defendant DuPerry - $11,200

12/11/2006 - Amended Complaint filed against Defendant McCulloch

7/9/2007 - McCulloch filed motion for summary judgment

8/16/2007 - Court denied McCulloch's motion for summary judgment

11/19/2008 - Court granted in part and denied in part Guajome Park's motion for reimbursement of fees

1/21/2009 - Court granted ex parte motion to continue mandatory settlement conference

11/24/2008 - Trial is scheduled to commence on 5/26/2009

DePlume's blog, Think Secret, published a report about a new $500 monitor-less iMac, new iWork software, and the price and features of the Mac Mini days before MacWorld 2005. In January 2005, Apple sued DePlume and his company for misappropriation of trade secrets, seeking an injunction to bar publication of its proprietary information, money damages, and discovery of the identity of DePlume's sources. Apple's claim was unusual because DePlume was not an Apple employee and was not bound by any confidentiality agreement. Apple argued that DePlume should nevertheless be held liable because he encouraged leaks of confidential information through an anonymous email system and a voice-mail tip line.

On March 4, 2005, DePlume filed a motion to strike the complaint pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16). The motion remained pending for years, but the court did not issue a decision on it.

In December 2007, Think Secret announced that the parties had settled the case. Under the agreement, the full terms of which are confidential, ThinkSecret agreed to cease operations. DePlume never revealed his sources.

Related case:

Apple also sought disclosure of documents and information from Think Secret in a case relating to its "Asteroid" product. Apple initially obtained permission to issue a subpoena requiring Think Secret to produce documents identifying its confidential sources for reports about the "Asteroid" product. This subpoena was quashed in O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal.App.4th 1423 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006), in which the court held that various Apple-related news sites could block disclosure of their anonymous sources and unpublished information based on California's reporter's shield provision and the First Amendment to the US Constitution. (Please see the CMLP datatabase entry on the Apple v. Does case).