FC: Yahoo, Infospace now added as defendants to Kirkland lawsuit

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

In an unusual twist, Bill Sheehan (the guy who runs Justicefiles.org and is 
being sued by the city of Kirkland) has added Yahoo, Infospace, and 
USSearch as defendants in the case. Read his motion here:
  http://www.politechbot.com/kirkland/defense.yahoo.motion.0601.html

If this sounds odd, it is. But his strategy is apparently to force the 
judge to make a distinction between those firms -- which provide personal 
information about lots of folks including Kirkland cops through their 
lookup services -- and Justicefiles.org.

From someone knowledgeable about the case:

> The plaintiffs have demanded over $600,000 in damages, and under 
> Washington law, the defendant can demand that those damages be shared by 
> all at-fault parties.  These other companies are spreading plaintiffs' 
> addresses, phone numbers and ssns around the world for free or at a low 
> cost.  If Sheehan violated the plaintiffs' privacy, so have these other 
> parties and they should share the damages.
>
> Why are the plaintiffs picking on Sheehan when the information he obtained
> came from governmental and commercial sources?  Clearly it must be because
> they don't like his message.
>
> In his Memorandum Ruling, the court stated:  "In terms of privacy, the
> dissemination of personal information by commercial enterprises is more
> limited than the dissemination by defendants.  Moreover, these sites are
> not unfettered.  They are carefully regulated.  See, e.g., the Federal Fair
> Credit Reporting Act,  15 U.S.C.  Sec. 1681 et seq..  Simply put, such
> sites may invade privacy, but they do so to a lesser degree."
>
> The judge would have to revisit his analysis to let them out on a motion to
> dismiss.  He's already ruled they are violating the privacy of the
> plaintiffs.  And he may be surprised at how little regulated the commercial
> sites actually are.

Disclaimer: The city of Kirkland's law firm has threatened Politech and 
your editor with a lawsuit over an article I wrote. You can see details here:
  http://www.politechbot.com/kirkland/

-Declan




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------