An appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Lycos must disclose personal data on one of its subscribers – possibly paving the way for various businesses to take on peer-to-peer file swappers, and opening anonymity concerns for adult Webmasters and others in cyberspace.
The 2000 European E-Commerce Directive's Article 14 requires Internet service providers to turn over personal details in the event of an illegal act like child porn. But the appellate ruling might give Europe's music and film industries a path to hunt online file swappers who download and trade illegally copied songs and movies, the way the American music and film industries have been trying to do.
The appeals court ruled in a case involving Dutch attorney/stamp trader Augustinus Bernard Maria Pessers, who claimed a Lycos subscriber wrongly and unlawfully accused him of fraud and published Pessers' name on a Website, also offering an e-mail address for others to report any other fraud Pessers was alleged to have committed, according to a published report.
Pessers asked and Lycos consented to shut down that Website without revealing the subscriber's identity, and that moved Pessers to sue Lycos.
A judge at the District Court of Haarlem ruled for Pessers last September. The appeals court admitted Lycos was in no direct position to determine the content on the Website that offended Pessers but it "would be against the common interest" if Pessers was denied the chance to confront his accuser. The question, the appeals court said, was whether there was another and less intrusive way for Pessers to obtain that information.
Dutch Internet attorney Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm warned of severe consequences from the appellate ruling. ISPs, he said, "will be less cautious about providing third parties with personal details (because) the provider can be held liable."
