A financial education firm has filed a defamation suit against 10 anonymous users of a bulletin board at Yahoo, hoping to strike a blow against the spreading of rumours on the Internet.
The federal court suit names 10 "John Does" as defendants, and a lawyer for Seattle-based Wade Cook Financial said it may subpoena Yahoo to hand over the real names of the users. Yahoo, however, is not a target of the lawsuit.
"These John Does are using the anonymity afforded by the Internet to damage the reputation and undermine the business of a legitimate company," said Wade Cook lawyer Paul Anderson.
"What makes this `virtual attack' even more egregious is the fact that these falsehoods are posted on Yahoo message boards for millions of people to read and they cannot be removed from the Internet by the company," he said.
A Yahoo spokesman declined to comment on behalf of the Internet giant (www.yahoo.com) which allows users to post messages on bulletin boards, get news and financial information, send emails and enter chat rooms.
The suit names a user with the identity "Delusional5" who posted a message on Yahoo's "Business and Finance" message board in January claiming the company's founder, Wade Cook, had been arrested for accepting kickbacks, Anderson said. The company denied the allegation.
Wade Cook could file the subpoena against Yahoo as early as this week to unmask the identities of "Delusional5" and nine other users who posted similar messages, Anderson said.
"We will identify their true legal names and personally serve them with a summons and complaint," Anderson said.
Anderson said while the suit did not name Yahoo, and Wade Cook had no immediate plans to name the Internet portal as a defendant, it was still a possibility "if the case is shaped accordingly".