Business risks of online libel

Businesses using the internet need to watch out for the risks of online libel.

A recent case in March illustrated the dangers of the relaxed atmosphere of electronic communications such as emails, and messages on bulletin boards.

A woman was ordered to pay £10,000 damages, plus costs reported to be £7,200, for libelling a UK Independence Party member after she waged an abusive campaign against him on a group discussion site for 100 members.

Attacking him with casual strokes of her mouse and keyboard, she published a series of unpleasant and unfounded insults, calling him, among other things, a lard brain, and a Nazi.

It’s deceptively simple to libel someone in cyberspace. Every time a defamatory posting or an email is read by a third party, a potentially actionable publication occurs.

Information can linger for years in the outer-reaches of the web. Every time it’s accessed, it is deemed to be re-published, re-triggering the 12-month limitation period for bringing a libel claim. So the passage of time may provide no defence.

But despite these risks, hasty emails and web postings are often fired off without a second thought.

Careless use of email can result in defamatory statements being scattergunned across the country – or even around the world. Authors are easily traced, particularly if the court orders disclosure of service users’ identities, as often happens.

Managers should take note and warn staff of the risks. An unguarded moment online could cost a key employee thousands of pounds in damages and create a PR disaster for the employer.

ISPs sleep easier

Firms who provide Internet services, such as hosting websites without direct responsibility for content, can sleep easier following another libel ruling in March.

Three Internet Service Providers, AOL, Tiscali and BT, were sued over allegedly libellous comments posted online by some of their service users.

The ISPs successfully argued that were not the publishers of the material posted by customers, but simply facilitators who had no knowing involvement in the publication of libellous content.


In effect, they were in the same position as an unwitting postal service delivering libellous letters.

The judge confirmed ISPs unaware of their customers using their services to post defamatory statements are likely to have comprehensive defences.

This is good news for businesses in that field and it may seem odd, but the point was unresolved in English law ever since the dawn of the Internet.

So, ISPs can now be confident of their position, but the chat room case means all businesses and their staff need to take extra care before booting up a computer and casually clicking a mouse.

Published 05/05/2006.