In perhaps the most blatant misuse of the subpoena power we've seen since the subpoena served on Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity last March, a lawyer for Thomas Garrett of Virginia has served a patently overbroad subpoena on blogger Waldo Jaquith, who publishes cvillenews.com, a community news blog about Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Last month, an anonymous website dedicated to criticizing Ohio homebuilder Powermark Homes succeeded in maintaining its anonymity in the face of a lawsuit brought by the company and two of its principals, Mark and Lisa Powers, who had sued the anonymous operator of Powermark Homes Alert.  At the time of the suit, the homepage for the site included a picture of Mark and Lisa and the statements "The Truth Exposed" and "Do you really want to do business with this Ohio Home Builder?"

On Monday, the Maryland Court of Appeals heard oral argument in a case requiring it to decide what showing an aggrieved plaintiff must make before a court will order a website operator to reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter.  Paul Levy of Public Citizen argued the case for Independent Newspapers

Paul Levy of Public Citizen recently tipped us off to a new John Doe case in federal court in California.  In this case, two real estate companies, Parkmerced Investors Properties LLC and Stellar Larkspur Partners LLC, have sued eighteen unknown defendants for violation of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C.