Cyber Libel Issues: Can the operator of a website be sued for libel for messages that are posted?
To date, actions for libel based on e-mails have been launched in Australia, England and the United States and have had varied results. For example a court in Western Australia found a publisher of a defamatory e-mail message on the Internet to be liable for $40,000 (Rindos v. Harwicke). An action by Dr. Laurence Godfrey of CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, for libel on usenet in England, was settled with the plaintiff accepting the defendant’s payment of money into court (Godfrey). An action for an e-mail libel by an American businessman against a defendant journalist was settled (Suarez v. Meeks).
