At 16.18 +0100 0-04-04, Geoff.Hayward scrobe:
>The situation as I understand it is as follows. Comments about a professor
>of physics (I will see if I can dig his name up)
no, no, nevermind... but this IS a recently concluded court case, then? I
think what I have a vague memory of must be a different case.
>were posted in a chat room
>hosted by Demon, a UK internet provider, anonymously. The claim was made
>that the comments were libellous and that Demon did nothing to remove them.
>Therefore, the internet provider, or rather the parent company was judged to
>be responsible and damages of £250 000 were awarded.
...on the other hand, you don't happen to know if the news is available on
the web somewhere?
>Personally, I do not
>think we need to worry about this but I was just curious as to what others
>thought about the possible issues for using the internet.
Well, in Sweden we have been outlaws for over a year now (I have forwarded
the following from the CIOS list once before, when it was new, don't know
if the URL is still current):
At 02.48 -0400 98-10-24, jpalme@dsv.su.se scrobe:
>A new Swedish law which makes most of the Internet illegal
>in Sweden took effect yesterday. The law is named personal
>information handling law. It makes much of the publication
>of information about individual persons on the Internet
>illegal, such as criticism of named persons, publication of
>lists of references in scientific papers or the sending of
>e-mail messages outside of Europe.
>
>More about the new law at URL
> http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/society/personal-register-law.html
>
>(note: The Swedish government will probably not use the law
>to stop Internet. This law and other laws like it have made
>me understand that laws are not meant to be obeyed.)
>
>Question: All other EU countries are to enact similar laws.
>Have other countries interpreted the EU directive in the
>same way, and developed laws which would make most of the
>Internet illegal?
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
>for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme
***********************end quote****************************
I wonder whether it's how much currency can be squeezed out of a case or
the nature of the slander that decides whether a case will be actually
brought to court. Or some entirely different factor.
best wishes
Eva Ekeblad
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:21:12 PDT