In the wee hour of 02:27 PM 4/6/01 -0400, John O'Flynn bequeathed such
tales as these:
> > >Except for the suits against large companies, are there laws in place
>to
> > >allow one person to sue another person for saying something about
>them on
> > >the internet in Canada? There seems to be nothing done about porn or
>other
> > >things on the net, but what about harassment and defamation of
>character?
>
>I'd be more concerned about suits BY large companies. I don't plan to
>harass or defame individuals (other than occasionally calling somebody
>an idiot on a mailing list :-) ), but I sometimes wonder what could
>happen if one day I cut loose and said what I think about, eg, AOL.
>Really went to town and did a job, discussed the mental caliber of their
>customers, etc. etc.
>
>Has a big outfit like that ever retaliated? They can buy a lot more
>lawyers than I can! Have they ever muscled in and wiped somebody out?
>I don't mean a rival company, just somebody who shot his mouth off.
>
>Cheers, John
I remember a couple years back here in Canada that one firm, I will not
disclose, who went after some of it's employees who made some disparaging
comments of their employer in a chat room. They believed they were
anonymous but the employer had the chat room host disclose the names
through the courts and disciplined it's offending workers. To what degree
the discipline extended I'm unawares. I know some large firms who do have
protocols for handling defamation of character, be it on the net,
newspaper, or otherwise and they do from time to time flex their
muscles. But for occasional flaming, it happens far too much to be pursued
actively, though with the success of Carnivore from the FBI and the fears
brought on by the Columbine shooting there is an increasingly high number
of court cases surrounding the implications of scenarios, fictional or
not. One Canadian student prepared a story which followed a storyline of
one of America's best know horror authors, you likely know his work by now,
for his high school class and he was arrested because of the content and
what it's implications might be derived as. It wasn't an attack plan or
strategy, merely an essay.
So it pays to be careful what you say sometimes, definitely. But do we
hold back from stating our concerns or speaking our mind always for fear of
persecution, I hope not. Just my 60% of 2 cents.
Peter Kaulback
I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
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