Comments on: Yahoo message board users sued

A publicly traded Net company takes aim at 100 "John Does" for allegedly posting inaccurate and defamatory statements on Yahoo Finance.

[icorigin]

Yahoo News Message Board Replacement

The "Discuss" option now terminated by Yahoo News has been replaced by

http://messages.yahoo.com

[simpleswine]

Umm, well, no

The link you provided is actually to the message boards on yahoo that have been around for years... they are not the replacement for the old news boards. I doubt we will ever see a replacement for the news boards, at least not until the lawsuits are settled from that lawyer that was sueing them over posts against him. Look it up, it's fairly obvious why the boards were shut down. I miss them!

[MegaMan1337]

Har, I heard of this on
http://mmohut.com forums, but this is so funny. I hope this prevents people from posting this garbage on stock forums.

[ganjavi]

The author of the article is wrong:

"But even if Yahoo is ultimately forced by a court to reveal the registration information of the anonymous defendants, that still might not uncover their true identities: the only data Yahoo has that might lead back to users is their email addresses--and those could be forged."

That is not true. The author should retract or post a correction. Yahoo maintains IP Addresses. Maybe the author doesn't know the difference between and IP and an email but with an IP the plaintiff can then subpoena the ISP and get the name and address of the person.

The author is also wrong in contending "the company's lawyers may have more luck finding a needle in a haystack". It is absolutely not the case. There has been many cases where anonymous posters have been identified. And a lawsuit is the best way of handling it when agents of hedge funds, short sellers, and others abuse their right to speak anonymously. I believe the company will have a lot of success tracking those people. Freedom of speech is not an issue in a case where the implied first amendment of speaking anonymously is abused.

CNET, let us see you publish a correction and not do the very thing you wrote about (publishing mis-information). You are creating prejudice against the company's chances by your wrong assessments.

Regards
Reza Ganjavi
www.rezamusic.com

[rbarsom]

Enforcing full disclosure is like handing out a traffic ticket at the Indie 500. Most people know more about bashers and promoters now more then any regulator.