In September 2008, New York University law professor Joseph Weiler was summoned to appear before a French Examining Judge in connection with a complaint of alleged criminal libel made by Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller, a senior lecturer at the Academic Centre of Law and Business in Israel.  Professor Weiler will appear for trial before the Paris Criminal Tribunal in June 2010.

Professor Weiler is the editor in chief of the European Journal of International Law and the affiliated book review sites, Global Law Books and European Law Books. In 2007, Global Law Books published a book review written by Professor Thomas Weigend, Director of the Cologne Institute of Foreign and International Criminal Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne.  Professor Weigend reviewed Dr. Calvo-Goller's book, The Trial Proceedings of the International Criminal Court. ICTY and ICTR Precedents, and criticized it as an "exercise in rehashing the existing legal set-up" and "unproductive," among other things. 

In June 2007, Dr. Calvo-Goller wrote to Professor Weiler in his capacity as editor of Global Law Books, requesting that he remove Professor Weigend's review from the site. Her letter detailed several perceived factual inaccuracies in the review, claiming that it went "beyond the expression of an opinion, fair comment and criticism" and contained "false factual statements which the author of the review, a professor of criminal law, could not reasonably believe to be true." It also claimed that "[t]he review is an indirect insult to former ICTY and actual ICC officials, defense counsel of the ICTY and ICTR, who took the time to read and comment on previous drafts of the book."

In a response to Dr. Calvo-Goller, Professor Weiler declined to remove the review, expressing his sympathy for Dr. Calvo-Goller's hurt feelings, but also pointing out the unorthodox character of the request:

 I have seen all manner of reviews and from time to time received letters from unhappy authors. In these long years of experience I have never received a letter such as yours both in content and tone. It departs from what in my view are considered common conventions of academic discourse and academic publication.

. . . 

It is a very extreme request to ask for a critical review to be removed. I could imagine acceding to such a request only in most egregious circumstances of, say, bad faith, conflict of interest etc. In reviewing a complaint such as yours the task of the editor is not to engage in a de novo review, but to assess whether the review falls into one of those extreme categories of egregious unreasonableness.

After noting Professor Weigend's distinguished professional credentials and addressing each specific factual/substantive contention in turn, Professor Weiler concluded that removing the review was not justified:

My conclusion from this preliminary enquiry is that the heavy burden needed in my eyes to suppress a book review has not been met. In fact not even a prima facie case has been made. I found nothing to impugn the integrity or professionalism of the reviewer and, independently of whether or not I share his opinions or conclusions on your book, I must decline your request to suppress the book review by removing it from the site. 

Professor Weiler also explained that he would forward Dr. Calvo-Goller's comments to Professor Weigend and would consider a request by Professor Weigend, if any, to change the review. Professor Weiler also pointed out the comment feature on the website and suggested that it would be "perfectly in order for you to write a comment which, after editorial approval, could be posted on the website and seen by anyone who reads the review."

Professor Weigend declined to make any changes, Dr. Calvo-Goller posted no comment, and Professor Weiler stood by Professor Weigend's decision.

Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital, Inc., a veterinary practice in Long Beach, California, brought a class action lawsuit against Yelp! Inc. in California federal court, alleging violations of California unfair competition law.

The complaint, filed on February 23, 2010, claims that Yelp! promises to manipulate user reviews in exchange for the purchase of advertising on the popular and influential consumer-review site.  In particular, the complaint alleges that Yelp! advertising employees systematically call business owners that are the subject of negative reviews and promise to remove or relocate negative reviews in exchange for monthly advertising deals.  It further alleges that members of the class were "threatened, implicitly or expressly, that if they did not purchase advertising from Yelp, their Yelp.com pages would be detrimentally manipulated, including for example, by removing positive reviews and posting new, negative reviews." The complaint relies heavily on press accounts detailing complaints from other businesses about the alleged extortionate behavior. 

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman responded with a two-part blog post (part 1, part 2) vigorously disputing the allegations, saying that the plaintiff's claims are "false" and "ignore empirical evidence in favor of conspiracy theories."  In part 2 of the blog post, Stoppelman stated that "we have never and will never extort businesses; the accusation is beyond ludicrous," and offered an explanation of why some business owners might get the wrong impression:

Why might some business owners think Yelp is shady? Here's the anatomy of a typical Yelp conspiracy theory:

Step 1. Business owner gets a sales call from Yelp that explains an advertising product which seems nuanced; hears stuff like "Favorite review at top" and "Enhance your presence". Business owner eventually decides, "Thanks, but no thanks on the ads, Yelp."

Step 2. Business owner newly-exposed to Yelp decides it’s interesting and aggressively solicits all their family and friends to write reviews.

Step 3. We've already cautioned against this practice and this is why: a few days later, our automated filter suppresses the suspicious-looking reviews.

Step 4. Business assumes algorithmic process in Step 3 is actually a Yelp employee manually punishing the business for declining to advertise in Step 1.

Optional Step 5. Now-angry business finds the Orly Taitz of internet lawyers who may or may not have read about our recent funding round.

On February 1, 2010, counsel for  Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff sent a demand letter to blogger Tom Falco, who publishes the Coconut Grove Grapevine.  The letter claimed that an anonymous comment to the site was false and defamatory. The comment in question was left below a blog post about a Commission hearing on bar closing times.

According to an attachment to the demand letter, the commenter pretended to leave a comment in Sarnoff's name expressing "support" for "drinking and driving after 3am even if it claims the lives of others," and signed "XOXO Marc Sarnoff." The comment appears to have been removed.

Sarnoff's demand letter stated that Falco had "a duty as the owner, editor, and publisher of the website, to police what is being posted on your website." It continued: "As such, since the post is the direct and proximate cause of injury to Commissioner Sarnoff, it is actionable against you and your website."  The letter made no mention of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

In February 2009, Vision Media TV, a company that makes video segments that advertise nonprofit companies, sued Julia Forte, who runs the website 800Notes, a forum site on which members of the public can discuss telemarketing companies and practices. Vision Media filed suit in federal district court in Florida after Forte refused to identify users who posted critical comments about the company and to remove the postings. The complaint, which has been amended several times, currently includes claims for libel, trademark dilution under Florida law, and "defamation by implication."

In January 2010, Forte moved to dismiss the complaint, or alternatively for summary judgment.  She argued, among other things, that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over her, and that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized her for publishing the statements of her users.  In an unusual move, Vision Media TV moved to strike Forte's motion to dismiss because her counsel posted the motion papers on the Public Citizen Litigation Group website. 

Update:

1/27/10 - Forte filed an Opposition to Motion to Strike and for Gag Order.

2/04/10 - The Court denied the Motion to Strike. 

Pembroke Pines Police Officer Daniel Rakofsky filed a "Complaint for Pure Bill of Discovery" against the publishers of the South Florid Sun-Sentinel newspaper, seeking the identities of several pseudonymous commenters to a Sun-Sentinel article about him. 

On November 5, 2009, the Sun-Sentinel published an article about Officer Rakofsky under the headline "Officer accused of sending nude photos of ex-lover."  (The article is no longer available on the Sun-Sentinel site, but is available on its mobile news platform and WPTV.com.)  According to Rakofsky's complaint, the comments section associated with the article contained unspecified, allegedly defamatory statements about him posted by pseudonymous users of the website.  

The "pure bill of discovery" used by Rakofsky is a procedural mechanism recognized in Florida, through which the plaintiff can obtain factual information from a defendant (here, the newspaper) in anticipation of filing another lawsuit against an ultimate wrongdoer (here, the commenters).  It is similar to the petition for "pre-action discovery" involved in the Liskula Cohen case in New York.

It is not clear whether the Sun-Sentinel has formally responded as of the date of writing.

Update:

2/24/2010 - The Sun-Sentinel moves to dismiss.

4/16/2010 - Rakofsky opposes the paper's motion.

4/26/2010 - The court denies the Sun-Sentinel's motion to dismiss.

5/18/2010 - The Sun-Sentinel files an answer to the complaint.

The Tallahassee Police Department subpoenaed records from RateMyCop.com after an anonymous user posted the name, address, and telephone number of a Tallahassee police officer on the site, according to Wired. When the authorities obtained identifying information for the poster, they arrested and charged Robert Brayshaw with a violation of Fla. Stat. § 843.17. Section 843.17 prohibits publication of a law enforcement officer's residential address or telephone number with the intent to intimidate, hinder, or interrupt any law enforcement officer in the legal performance of his or her duties.

A state court judge ultimately dismissed the charges against Brayshaw with prejudice for failure to comply with Florida's speedy trial requirements. Brayshaw then filed a complaint in federal court in Florida, seeking a declaration that Section 843.17 violates the First Amendment. 

In February 2009, Beverly Stayart filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! and two other internet services, Altavista and AdultFriendFinder, for unauthorized use of her name on the Internet. She claimed false designation of origin and false endorsement under the Lanham Act, as well as violation of her statutory and common law rights to privacy.

The dispute originated when Ms. Stayart inputted her name as a search term at yahoo.com and altavista.com and was bombarded with spam sites purporting to sell Cialis (and other drugs to treat erectile dysfunction) or containing explicit banner ads for adultfriendfinder.com.  These sites contained her name either in their “spamdexing” text or their nonsensical URLs (e.g. jewellery-makin-doorway.orge.pl/bev-stayart.html).

Ms. Stayart tried to rectify the situation by notifying the search engines of the misleading results and requested that they be removed. When they failed to take any action, Ms. Stayard filed suit. 

In September 2009, the federal district court in Wisconsin dismissed the case.  The court held that Stayart failed to state a claim under the Lanham Act, and alternatively that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred her claim, although it is nominally an intellectual property claim outside Section 230's scope. After dismissing the federal claims, the court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.

Stayart filed a notice of appeal on September 24, 2009.

Update:

11/25/2009: Stayart filed her appellate brief, arguing that she did have standing under the Lanham Act  because of her work for charity; alternatively, she argued that she should be able to amend her complaint to pursue state law claims under federal diversity jurisdiction.

2/10/2010: Appellees filed their brief, arguing that Stayart had shown no intention of using her name for commercial activity and even if she did, Section 230 would bar her claims.

2/19/2010: Stayart filed her reply brief.

9/30/2010: The Seventh Circuit affirmed the trial court, holding that Stayart does not have a commercial interest in her name, despite her charitable activities. Therefore, the Court held she that does not have standing under the Lanham Act. It also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her leave to amend her complaint, because it found that allowing her to pursue her state law claims under diversity jurisdiction would be "futile."