[LINK] Dentist Google review court order lead to all being revealed

[Kim Holburn]

It's an interesting case.  In this particular case the review was from a
rival dentist and not a patient at all.  An open and shut case?  On the
other hand, if it had been a patient, it wouldn't so clear cut.  It
seems like he had good reason to pursue this.  This isn't so much about
freedom of speech.  The "reviewer" had freedom of speech.  This is about
the consequences of speech.  No speech is free from consequences.

On 2020/07/24 12:37 pm, Robin Whittle wrote:
> (I am writing a Thunderbird HTML email to Link to see what happens.)
> 
> We can get at least our weekly allowance of schadenfreude from reading this:
> 
>     https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-24/melbourne-dentist-defamation-action-over-alleged-google-review/12483062
> 
> A dentist won a court order for Google to reveal to his legal team
> username and IP address details of who wrote a damning review of his
> business.  The team then used this with Optus to determine who wrote the
> review. 
> 
> As far as I know defamation - at least in a fully public sense, rather
> than within a closed, private group of people - is widely and correctly
> not regarded as part of the freedom of speech, freedom from interception
> and anonymity protections that most of us want to defend.
> 
> Based on what I read in the above story, I think the reviewer deserves
> whatever negative social, legal and financial consequences arise from
> his actions and the ensuing court case.
> 
> However, now that a legal precedent has apparently been set, I think
> there is a very slippery slope, with no clear threshold for how
> "defamatory" an anonymous review needs to be before aggressive legal
> steps could be used to identify the author for all the public to see.
> 
> 
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