Canadian Court says suing message board operator not an easy means to identify anonymous internet users

A decision has been reached in a Canadian case on outing anonymous commenters. Dan Michaluk writes:

Yesterday the Divisional Court held that a motions judge erred in requiring the owner/operator of a right-wing internet message board to disclose the identities of eight John Doe defendants who had posted commentary about lawyer Richard Warman.

The case is about whether and when civil rules can be used to identify anonymous internet users without restrictions that are based on countervailing Charter-protected interests such as privacy and freedom of expression. The need to balance interests has been recognized in the test for production of identifying information from non-parties. In this case, the party in custody of the identifying records was a named defendant and subject to a routine duty to produce “all documents relevant to any matter in issue in the action.”