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Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Fri, May 2nd 2003 12:36pm





Ex-KGB Man Sues Amazon For Libel

from the why-don't-people-understand-open-forums? dept

People really don't seem to understand open forums, do they? An ex-KGB agent who wrote a book is now suing Amazon.com for libel based on a review someone wrote for his book on Amazon's site. Why Amazon should be responsible for what some random person wrote on the site is anyone's guess. It's an open forum, and thus, it has nothing to do with Amazon. This also brings up questions of jurisdiction, since the lawsuit is in the UK (which, I believe, has stricter defamation laws), but the post was to Amazon's US site.

1 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Picking the jurisdiction

    identicon
    Craig, May 16th, 2003 @ 6:24pm

    Why not? It's all global. When a Mexican reporter and a freelance journalist uncovered pretty good proof that the owner of Banamex, the second largest bank in Mexico, had cocaine shipments and money laundering operations going on the side, they were sued for libel by Citibank in a New York court. Reason: Citibank had just "merged" (bought) Banamex. Their problem - the Mexican journalist and the resident-in-mexico freelancer who published the story on the Web had already been sued in Mexico, and had the suit thrown out by a Mexican court on grounds that truth is a defense against libel. Citibank's excuse for suing in New York? The freelancer's website happened to be hosted on a server in New York. This is how our oh-so-moral financial institutions operate, so I wouldn't be too critical of a KGB writer suing Amazone in London. Just a sign of the deteriorating times.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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