Hi All, This is a case I have been meaning to share -- a decision of my state court (the Virginia Supreme Court) ruling that a judge did not have the authority to compel Yelp to reveal the identities of anonymous users who panned an Alexandria, Virginia carpet-cleaning company called Hadeed. As the Washington Post noted, this is "a case closely watched by free-speech advocates and businesses alike." The case does not mean that there is no ability to access the identity of the speakers (criticizers, in this case, of Hadeed), but under what laws does the request have to be evaluated? Paul Alan Levy, a well known attorney working for the advocacy group Public Citizen and representing Yelp (and its Customers), "welcomed the ruling, saying Hadeed would have to pursue the reviewers’ identities in California courts, which set a higher bar for revealing the identities of people making anonymous speech." The issues that the Virginia Supreme Court debated will sound very familiar -- "Hadeed subpoenaed the reviewers’ identities from Yelp, and an Alexandria Circuit Court judge ordered that the information be turned over. Yelp refused to comply with the ruling, saying it would appeal to protect its users’ First Amendment right to speak anonymously. Yelp and free-speech advocates said revealing the names of the reviewers would have a chilling effect on anonymous speech on the Web."* Happy reading -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/yelp-wont-have-to-turn-over-names-... Kathy *All quotes from the Washington Post article...