Dominick v. MySpace

Dominick Vs. Myspace
Court	Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois
Date decided	May 2008
Judge(s) sitting	None due to Withdrawal of Petition

Dominick vs. Myspace Inc. is a lawsuit filed by Larry Dominick on June 2008 against Myspace. The suit, filed in Cook County, Illinois, alleges that the defendant refused to release the name of the creator of a profile on their site.

Events in the case

In May 2008, Larry Dominick filed a Petition of Discovery within the Circuit Courty of Cook County, Illinois. He was trying to find information on the Myspace user(s) who had created two false profiles of him.^[1] The petition called for the court to allow him to request the name(s) of the Myspace user(s) who had defamed Dominick.

Dominick's petition, however, was not complete in the facts that he did not identify anything said wrongly against him. He also did not describe the content of the Myspace page in detail of wrong things posted, though, according to the Chicago Tribune, the pages had photos and comments about his ethics and sexuality. Myspace removed the profiles after Dominick's complaint.^[1]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation then filed an amicus curiae brief with the court.^[2] EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman asked the judge to reject the effort of Dominick to find out the user(s) name(s). He stated that the request infringed on the rights of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. He also argued that this also forbade the Stored Communications Act, in which it says that "[g]overnment entities from obtaining identifying customer information through the ordinary civil discovery process".

"The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but to speak anonymously.If Mr. Dominick's claims are legitimate, he may be able to obtain the identifying information that he seeks. Until he meets his burden, however -- including, among other things, attempting to notify the author of this court action and identifying the allegedly defamatory statements at issue -- the court should not grant his request. The First Amendment requires courts to guard against attempts to unmask critics who have simply made statements litigants don't like, especially when such requests are made by elected officials." ^[3]

On June 13, Dominick willingly withdrew his petition for discovery against Myspace without prejudice.^[4]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/dominick-v-myspace
2. ^ http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2008/eff-asks-court-protect-anonymity-fake-profile-creator
3. ^ http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/06/05
4. ^ http://www.eff.org/cases/dominick-v-my-space