is website owner responsible for posts?

[sebastiancielenski]

I am starting a website.

The purpose of that website will be to post anonymous messages onto a blog.

It will not require giving any personal details to post -- they can just make a post, hit submit and done. Then they can input an email address to a field and an automated message will be generated to the person that the post is intended for.

The recipient of the message will get a message with a link, and if he clicks the link, he'll be able to look up the post that's addressed to him and read it (the message will include the post number that he should read). The recipient will never find out who wrote the message as the author of the post is anonymous and the email address that the automated message is from is not the author's email address, but an address I specify. So the recipient will never find out who wrote the post.

As you probably realize, I need to ask about libel.

In case there is a comment that's libel, would I be held responsible as the provider of the service, or would the author be responsible and not me?

If I am responsible, what do you think I could do to avoid that responsibility? (I would basically want the author of the post to be 100% responsible and not me as I have not made the comment -- how do I go about making sure that's the case, even if the author is totally anonymous and the email address that the automated message goes from is generated by me? )

There is a great deal of case law and other law now that says the web site owner is not liable.

You have to sue the poster for libel, defamation etc.

thank you. and what if you can't identify the poster as he did not disclose ANY data about himself?

I just posted a question similar to yours titled community message board liablity on 3-30-08. We are having similar issues. If a poster post a bad comment about a restaruant such as "ABC has rats". Now ABC is mad and wants money.

The negative poster could be the owner trying to get money. An attorney outside of this site advised us that a person can sue for anything but will not win in this case unless he can prove a loss of revenue due to the post. He also advised to terminate the message board.

Please post any advice you get.

The Board is not liable but the poster can be tracked down and sued if the post is defamatory/untrue etc.

You cannot sue yahoo but can sue a yahoo poster.