East Coast Comments

As Simon detailed recently the issue of online comments and the identities of those who make them is a going concern and the concern in question arose here in Nova Scotia this week.

A recent story about issues within the firefighting department in a local weekly publication The Coast, elicited various comments in the online version of the paper. People who were targeted by those comments took exception to the comments and went to Nova Scotia Supreme Court to request an order for the Coast and Google to reveal the names and IP addresses of the commenters, neither the Coast nor Google opposed the application. As background information, the Coast does not screen comments prior to posting but will remove comments deemed offensive, the comments in question have been removed. The court granted the application (no primary source available) ordering the Coast and Google to reveal any and all information they have about the commenters. An interesting quote in the Chronicle Herald from the owner of the Coast, indicated that he wanted direction from the court on whether there was an obligation either legal or ethical to protect the IP addresses and names that were given by the commenters.

This application does not definitively provide any direction on the issue but perhaps the movement of the windsock might provide a clue as to where the issue is going. There might be some question as to how much was gained by the successful application; posters to the site have to give a name and email address, of course nothing stops one from putting any John Hancock as their John Hancock, the IP addresses are more definitive but one does not always surf the net on an IP tied to their personal identity.