e-ignite

Unexpectedly, a US judge has ruled against Apple who were seeking a court injunction requiring an ISP to name a blogger. This started quite a long time ago when Apple were a little upset to discover some of their secrets relating to a forthcoming product release were leaked in a blog. They claimed that the blogger must reveal his source so that they could find out who the leak was.

In the current privacy climate, I was very surprised that the judge ruled in favour of privacy for the blogger – it is fair that bloggers be allowed to protect their sources just like a member of the press has a legal right to do the same. However, the ruling looks far from secure, and Apple may triumph yet.
It is a concern that rather than use the argument that a blogger be protected in the same way that a member of the press is, it seems that the judge used bizzare supporting evidence to support his decision to throw out Apple’s case, and this means that Apple are likely to appeal and have the judge’s decision overturned.

It is a concern that any overturned judgement in this case will send a shockwave through the blogging community – it may set a precident that a blog does not give the author the same privacy rights as an author who makes a newspaper. While I don’t condone the theft of trade secrets and breach of privacy, my concern is that any precident set by a judgement against the bloggers will place new requirements on people posting blogs. Will you now need to register your name, address, telephone number etc. to publish a blog? It seems absurd that you do not have these same concerns if you run a newspaper, since members of the press have rights recognised in US law (and laws in other countries also – I refer to the US in this case because of the Apple lawsuit).

It does seem that the blogger has become the scapegoat, since according to the EFF, Apple themselves have made no internal investigation, have not taken employee interviews under oath, and have not viewed storage logs. So why, if this internal procedure has not been completed, is the lowly blogger the target?

It is a question that I am unable to answer.