Delaware blogging decision

Ideoblog blogged In John Doe 1 v. Cahill, decided October 5, the Delaware Supreme Court came down with a major decision protecting anonymous bloggers against an attempt to expose them through a defamation action.... Cahill is an important first step toward judicially clarifying the standards applicable to blog defamation, at least until the “Supreme Court” gets hold of these issues.

Professor Steve Bainbridge blogged Big Win for Bloggers in Delaware

The Delaware Supreme Court is best known for being the leader in state corporation law. Recently, however, the Court was given the chance to become “the first State Supreme Court to address” the issue of whether defamation plaintiffs suing an anonymous blogger was entitled to compel the blogger’s ISP to disclose the blogger’s identity, “particularly in the context of a case involving political criticism of a public figure.”

I don’t claim to be a First Amendment expert, but it looks to me like the Delaware court did a very good job in this case (Doe v. Cahill; download pdf of opinion here).

This is good news for anonymous bloggers. There is always http://invisiblog.com for those extremely paranoid, but this should be enough for most people