Legal Issues with Blog Comments

Blogging is new and many things in the Blogosphere are undefined and uncertain. As things mature, a legally transparent foundation will develop that places blogging into perspective to other publishing media.

Websites went through this and still do occasionally, Search Engines had their first Wave of fundamental legal decisions regarding the question what they can do and what not.

Now it seems to be the Bloggers turn.

I can imagine what went through the head of Jeremy Shoemaker aka Shoemoney when the doorbell rang and a police officer handed over to him the subpoena that forces him to testify in a slander lawsuit. The trigger for the lawsuit was a comment made by a visitor of his blog to one of Jeremy’s posts.

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal speculates that Jeremy might be forced to provide log file data and other tracking records that could reveal the origin of the commenter. Specifically of interest is the IP address of the visitor of the blog that entered the slanderous comment. The court could then determine the ISP of the visitor and force access to the ISP log information that ties the IP and Time of the incident to a specific User Account = Person or other legal entity.

This case will provide some general answers to whether or not a Blog owner will be required to keep record of those things that he can provide details to a court in cases like this and may be even what the Blog owners responsibilities are regarding comments made by visitors to his blog. Can blog owners be held liable, if he cannot provide the necessary information to track down the person that made the comments?

I am sure that the outcome of this case will provide some answers to the questions about legal responsibilities and liabilities of Blog Owners regarding the content on their Blogs.

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