Saturday, December 02, 2006
Trouble on the horizon?
I've been struggling for the past week to actually find any good material to blog about. I found something that seemed worthwhile today.
According to CNN.com, a victory has just been won for electronic speech. The California Supreme Court ruled that web sites cannot be sued for libel, following a case where a woman posted allegedly libelous emails concerning two doctors. The ruling determines that people can only sue the original sources for libel, not the sites that publish the material.
This, to me, is both good and bad news. It's a victory for eBay, Google, Yahoo and several other sites that backed the defendant, afraid that if the defendant were to lose, they would be held liable. This means, also, that Google and Co. are not going to have to watch their backs. It also means a lot more inaccurate crap can float around on the internet and no one has to answer for it. Strange implications.... ¶ 3:59 PM
According to CNN.com, a victory has just been won for electronic speech. The California Supreme Court ruled that web sites cannot be sued for libel, following a case where a woman posted allegedly libelous emails concerning two doctors. The ruling determines that people can only sue the original sources for libel, not the sites that publish the material.
This, to me, is both good and bad news. It's a victory for eBay, Google, Yahoo and several other sites that backed the defendant, afraid that if the defendant were to lose, they would be held liable. This means, also, that Google and Co. are not going to have to watch their backs. It also means a lot more inaccurate crap can float around on the internet and no one has to answer for it. Strange implications.... ¶ 3:59 PM
