The Australian courts have recently dealt a blow to people who still believe they can publish whatever they like on the Internet anonymously. A South Australian court has announced its decision saying that Google is ordered to reveal to a businessman private details of anonymous bloggers who were claimed to have defamed him.
Shane Radbone, a former footballer, together with his wife Victoria Elise Radbone, is going to sue the bloggers for defamation. The problem is that the Radbones claim they were defamed on an anonymous blog. That’s why they had to apply to the District Court in Adelaide asking the judge to issue an order against Google to make it hand over the personal details of the bloggers.
The court satisfied the couple’s demand that has given the search giant 21 days to disclose to them full details of “relevant evidentiary material” which relates in any way to the identity of the person or people who registered 5 named blogs on the company’s blogger.com network. The court order said that Google has to hand over the email addresses, phone numbers and the IP addresses of the person or people who registered the blog in question. Legal representatives of the search giant were in court, but declined to tell the press what they thought of the case.
In the past, Google has repeatedly handed over private details of its users, but these were criminal cases or investigations. Even in those cases Google refused to disclose the details without a court order. Industry experts don’t remember when Google has ever disclosed information during civil proceedings.
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