Personal Democracy Plus Our premium content network. LEARN MORE You are not logged in. LOG IN NOW >

Judge Throws Out Koch Satirical Site Case

BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, May 10 2011

Ben Smith points us to the news that a federal judge has thrown out a case involving a satirical website hosted by Bluehost, a site that -- at Koch-Inc.com -- told the world for a few hours that Koch Industries was lending its resources to climate change groups. Bloomberg Businessweek's Roxana Hegeman reports:

"Before authorizing subpoenas seeking to strip speakers of their First Amendment right to anonymity, courts require plaintiffs to make a preliminary showing that their complaint has merit," the judge wrote.

Kimball rejected all of Koch Industries' legal claims that had accused the defendants -- identified in the litigation only as Youth for Climate Change -- with trademark infringement, unfair competition, cybersquatting and violation of the company website's terms of use.

The nonprofit Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represented the anonymous members of Youth for Climate Change, argued that Koch's lawsuit would have a chilling effect on anonymous Internet communications and basic First Amendment rights.

Part of the story is, it seems, that Bluehost shut down the Koch hoax site and turned over registration records after Koch got subpoenas, with a company vice president telling the AP, "We are not in the business of harboring, you know, felons and crooks. We are not about that. This isn't WikiLeaks."

It's an curious distinction, given that one of the highest-profile cases in the politics-of-hosting space is when Amazon removed Wikileaks from its servers. But there have been other incidents of note of late, like the booting of the Dove World Outreach Center from Rackspace's servers after its leader suggested marking September 11th by burning Korans, or the alleged takedown of a fake GE site from, again, Bluehost. It's probably a safe bet that the politicization of website hosting is something we'll be taken about more in the near future.

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

This Isn't What Political Air Time Usually Means

MoveOn.org is asking supporters for $150,000 in donations to fly a plane above high-dollar fundraisers for Mitt Romney with "a message that reminds voters how he represents his corporate and 1% donors." MoveOn previously hired a plane to fly over Romney's Liberty University graduation speech with the message "GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT." GO

There's a New $200 Million Fund for Super-High-Speed Broadband Projects

An initiative to build and test gigabit-speed broadband networks is set to fund up to six next-generation Internet access projects across the country, fueled by a new $200 million broadband development funding program, Gigabit Squared and Gig.U announced this morning. GO

New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy

We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. GO

Messin' with Lamar Smith, Revisited

Remember that grassroots fundraising campaign to put a "Don't Mess with the Internet" billboard in the home district of Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and sponsor of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act? All of the money required came in, and Fight for the Future, the advocacy group opposing more stringent copyright protections online, writes that the billboard went up. GO

Republican National Convention Organizers Sever Ties With Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions

After eight years producing online content for the Republican National Convention, GOP web consultant Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions is off of the project. "Campaign Solutions was retained to help develop our convention website and digital strategy, but they are no longer involved in convention planning," James Davis, the convention's communications director, told techPresident Tuesday. It's unclear what precipitated the of the relationship between the convention organizers and Campaign Solutions, which has been producing the online component of the event since 2004. But Donatelli's name surfaced in a controversial anti-Obama ad pitch sent to a Super PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, which appeared in its entirety in the Times last week. Ricketts has since disavowed the proposal and Donatelli has denied any involvement. GO

PD+ This Thurs 1pm: Thriving Online With Howard Rheingold

I'm really looking forward to talking with author Howard Rheingold this Thursday on the next PD+ teleconference. His new book, Net Smart, is a concise and thoughtful guide to understanding and making the most of the hyper-networked, always-on, firehose of information and distraction that is the contemporary experience of anyone who uses ... GO

City of Joplin, Mo. Launches New Online Center Ahead of Tornado's Anniversary

The city of Joplin, Missouri launched its new web site over the week-end ahead of the May 22 anniversary of the massive tornado that devastated the city and killed 161 people. The new site enables Joplin citizens to sign up for emergency alerts via text message, e-mail and RSS. In addition to those alerts, individuals can also sign up for ... GO

In Virginia, City Council Debates to Include Questions Posed Online

The Alexandria Democratic Party in Alexandria, Virginia has partnered with online civic engagement platform ACTion Alexandria to include questions solicited in an online forum in the final Democratic primary debate for a City Council election there on June 4, ahead of the June 12 election, according to a statement released by the group. ACTion Alexandria hopes to work with both parties during the general election.

Participants in the project can add questions to the forum, or vote on questions that have already been posed, although each user is only given three votes to distribute. Users are also encouraged to use their real names. Questions submitted so far hit on topics ranging from broadband access to a ban on food trucks in the city.

GO

More