{"id":36480,"date":"2009-11-05T04:38:03","date_gmt":"2009-11-05T09:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091102\/1018016768.shtml"},"modified":"2009-11-05T04:38:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-05T09:38:03","slug":"uk-law-firm-sets-up-special-team-to-hunt-down-anonymous-commenters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/36480","title":{"rendered":"UK Law Firm Sets Up Special Team To Hunt Down Anonymous Commenters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/inarimedia.wordpress.com\/\">Stephanie Migot<\/a> writes in to let us know how UK law firm Wragge &#038; Co has decided to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birminghampost.net\/birmingham-business\/birmingham-business-news\/legal-business\/2009\/10\/28\/birmingham-wragge-team-to-focus-on-online-comment-defamation-65233-25030203\/\" >set up a special &#8220;cyber tracing&#8221; team<\/a>, whose job it will be to scour the internet for anyone making negative anonymous comments about any of their clients and then take action.  Of course, the law firm says it&#8217;s really looking for people leaking confidential information (such as disgruntled employees), but, as you probably know, defamation laws in the UK are significantly more draconian than those elsewhere.  Thus, the line is a lot more blurry, and will almost certainly lead to these sorts of activities targeting mere criticism and complaints, rather than true defamation. The unfortunate end result is a series of chilling effects on any concept of free speech.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091102\/1018016768.shtml\">Permalink<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091102\/1018016768.shtml#comments\">Comments<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/article.php?sid=20091102\/1018016768&#038;op=sharethis\">Email This Story<\/a><br \/>\n <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=5b2a136048488c5f471838b8966180a1&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=5b2a136048488c5f471838b8966180a1&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2225\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=fIb9klN572Q:9SF2qJaKTbE:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?i=fIb9klN572Q:9SF2qJaKTbE:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=fIb9klN572Q:9SF2qJaKTbE:c-S6u7MTCTE\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?d=c-S6u7MTCTE\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/techdirt\/feed\/~4\/fIb9klN572Q\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephanie Migot writes in to let us know how UK law firm Wragge &#038; Co has decided to set up a special &#8220;cyber tracing&#8221; team, whose job it will be to scour the internet for anyone making negative anonymous comments about any of their clients and then take action. Of course, the law firm says [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}