Anonymous Defamation
Kronenberger Rosenfeld’s regular use of digital forensics in our internet law-related litigation, and our in-house investigative resources, are great benefits to our clients who are victims of anonymous defamation. Our internet defamation attorneys have fought to discover the identities of anonymous defamers for over 15 years, and we would be happy to bring this experience to bear for you.
When you are harmed by anonymous, unlawful defamation, Kronenberger Rosenfeld helps strip that anonymity and obtain relief.
The internet makes it easy for any person to anonymously publish statements about your business or about you personally. While the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects anonymous speech generally, that protection does not extend to defamation, which is unlawful. Thus, where somebody publishes a provably false statement of fact about you or your business, that statement may be actionable as defamation. The fact that the statement was published anonymously does not make the statement lawful, and it does not protect the author from liability.
However, when dealing with anonymous defamation, a whole new set of issues arises. In particular, how do you seek legal relief from somebody when you do not know who that person is? Our internet defamation attorneys are at the forefront of representing plaintiffs, defendants, and third-party interactive computer services in anonymous defamation cases. In representing plaintiffs, we employ a range of judicial and non-judicial techniques to identify the publisher of the unlawful statements. Often, anonymous defamation cases have required us to file lawsuits against anonymous “John Doe” defendants and request that the court authorize our firm to conduct sufficient discovery to lift the anonymity. Once we have identified the publisher of the defamatory statements, we can convert the “John Doe” lawsuit into a conventional lawsuit and pursue maximum legal relief for our client.
When our internet defamation attorneys represent defendants and third-party interactive computer services, we rely on our extensive experience with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act along with our experience with the general First Amendment right to speak anonymously. Invoking this experience, our firm has been able to quash subpoenas or force plaintiffs to withdraw subpoenas issued to identify the publisher of an online statement.
Regardless of whether you are the subject of the defamation, the publisher of a statement on the internet, or an affected interactive computer service, it is important to engage qualified internet attorneys as soon as possible. This is particularly true in the case of anonymous defamation because these matters are very time sensitive. Once a publisher’s identity is revealed or protected by a court, the nature of the dispute will fundamentally change. The following are representative examples of Kronenberger Rosenfeld’s work in the area of anonymous defamation.
If you have an anonymous defamation matter, contact us today at (415) 955-1155, ext. 120, or submit your matter using our online case submission form.
REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE
- Our internet defamation attorneys represented a large provider of business information services against multiple anonymous defendants who published false and disparaging statements about the business on multiple consumer watchdog websites. The firm obtained multiple rounds of early discovery for the client, through which we identified the publishers of the defamatory statements.
- Represented a prominent community member against anonymous publishers of online statements alleging that the client had engaged in criminal conduct. The firm obtained early discovery and identified the publisher of the statements. Thereafter, the firm quickly negotiated a settlement on behalf of the client.
- Represented the U.S. Chess Federation in a lawsuit involving unknown parties hacking into the email account of a member of the board of directors of our client, stealing information regarding the internal investigation of two other directors of the organization, and publishing false and defamatory statements about members of the organization. After multiple rounds of subpoenas, the firm identified the person responsible for the hacking, which led to the criminal indictment of such employee and an eventual resolution of the case.
- Represented the anonymous publisher of a blog and filed a motion to quash a subpoena on his behalf. The subpoena was designed to reveal the blogger’s identity. The firm persuaded the court that the blogger’s identity was not relevant to the underlying lawsuit. Thus, the court quashed the subpoena, finding that the plaintiff had issued the subpoena solely to reveal the identity of a publisher of protected speech and not to advance its claims.
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