Lets just hope MS, Apple, Redmond, Paris Hilton.... Etc Dont read El Reg. We'ed all be in the crap. However, the drinks bill for the work retreaving that infomation would probably be enough of a dissinsentive to stop them.

"Deputy Judge Richard Parkes QC said the prostitute claims were unlikely to be taken seriously, but the suggestion that Walker was incapable of spotting a competent football player was more professionally damaging."

Eh? Presumably because the former is a ridiculous assertion but the latter may actually be true? In which case hasn't the judge thrown his hat in with original posters?

14 posts hardly qualifies as a campaign of vilification does it? Whatever next? Supporters calling the referee a w*nker? It doesn't bear thinking about...

...but methinks that Sheffield Wednesday's position in the football league may lend some credence to the criticism of the directors of the club.

This is why anyone operating an Internet forum should have it hosted outside their own country, if they expect any controversial topics to be discussed.

For example, at Castle-Anthrax.us, I could simply tell a UK judge to go bugger himself if he demanded the real names of my users, but it would be much harder (and more expensive) to ignore an order from a US court.

There is nothing that compels you to use a server located in the UK if you are using a .uk domain.

People with overweening self-opinion seek to slap down name callers. News at 11.

website in India. The Police kept making approaches to my webhosts to shut me down for caling some of them corrupt ,now they have a harder task.

India has proved good and no probs on speed either.

How can this be called a test case ??. 5 years or so ago I had a few problems. I collected the IP addresses, copied the emails, went to Waterloo, taxi to Royal Courts of Justice, waited outside the Practice Masters room and 15 minutes later I had an Order ordering several ISP's to name the posters. It is simple.

Doesn't it have to be believable for it to be libel: if I were to claim that Bill Gates was intent on taking over the universe then it would hardly be libel, since no-one in thier right minds would believe that. Likewise, no-one should believe unmoderated user comments on forums, and especially not troll/flame type posts. This should be laughed out of court by any sane judge.

Anonymous message posters should be referred to "Scared of Big Brother" or something , anonymous cowards?.

anon

There's no such thing as a UK judge.

Either it's a judge from England & Wales, a judge from Scotland, or a judge from Northern Ireland.

Three quite separate jurisdictions - take your pick. You can't be a judge for more than one of them. And yes, I know that a UK Supreme Court is being set up... comprised of judges from each of the three...

Someone with numbers for a name wrote: "Doesn't it have to be believable for it to be libel: if I were to claim that Bill Gates was intent on taking over the universe then it would hardly be libel, since no-one in thier right minds would believe that."

..it wasn't the gods honest trueth?