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Jewish World Review Feb. 15, 2001 / 22 Shevat, 5761

Kimball Perry

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Consumer Reports


Defamed on Web, but
who to blame?

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- CINCINNATI | Someone is smearing Kristine Jackson's name and she has filed suit to get it stopped.

The problem is, Jackson, a massage therapist, doesn't know who is responsible for the defamatory comments made in an Internet chat room.

Her attorney, Michael Paolucci said this suit is unusual because he isn't sure who wrote the defamatory messages, which company to sue or how to stop the messages because no one is sure who published the defamatory information.

Jackson first realized there might be a problem when she noticed a sudden influx of new customers. A large majority of them were men, odd because 80 percent of her clients are women. Also odd was that most of those men, unlike most of her customers, weren't referred to her by doctors.

In court papers, she says it is her belief that "all of these new referrals come to her in the hopes of receiving sexual favors in exchange for money.

"(She) states that her business is being harmed since it is impossible to determine which of the referrals are looking for a massage and which are in search of sex acts."

The day after Jackson filed her Jan. 23 suit against Sinsinnati.com, the company that provided access to the chat room where the defamatory comments is alleged to have been made, went out of business.

University of Cincinnati law professor Ronna Schneider said suits like Jackson's raise creative legal questions because of the newness of the Internet and the size of the audience that could view defamatory information.

"This is one of those areas where the law is playing catch-up with technology. In reality, one could argue that these are no different than in old technology cases that involve newspapers," she said.

Kimball Perry is a writer with Cincinnati Post. Comment by clicking here.

© 2001, SHNS