defamer

Google sued for not removing ugly photo of Miami Heat owner

In this blogging, social-networking, open-information age, unflattering photos of people pop up left and right. But would you sue someone for posting such an image? Or even more, sue Google for refusing to take it down?

That's exactly what minority owner of the Miami Heat NBA Team Ranaan Katz has decided to do. According to paidContent, Katz has based his argument on copyright infringement but also wrote in the complaint that the photo is "partially distorted due to its unflattering nature."

The photo in question shows Katz standing courtside during a basketball game with his eyebrows raised, … Read more

Punishment for defamer: Send 100 tweets of apology

I am sure that soccer star Ryan Giggs and others who feel they have somehow been hard done by in writing, will be fueled with enthusiasm for this tale of birching by Twitter.

For the Associated Press reports that Fahmi Fadzil, an aide to an opposition politician and commentator on social issues, was made to undergo a very painful ritual punishment for having defamed a magazine publisher.

Yes, an out-of-court settlement forced him to write 100 tweets of apology over three days. Sadly, it seems these tweets all had to enjoy the same construction.

Which meant that "I am … Read more

Facebook takes down Palestinian intifada page

A Facebook page called the Third Palestinian Intifada has been removed from the site following a request from the Israeli government.

Yuli Edelstein, Israel's minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, sent a letter directly to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on March 23. In the letter, which has been posted on the Web site The Jerusalem Gift Shop, Edelstein asked the company to take down the page calling for a third intifada, translated by some as violent uprising, to begin against Israel on May 15.

Pointing to remarks and movie clips on the page calling for the killing of … Read more

Execs convicted in Google Video case in Italy

In the second hit of a one-two punch in Europe, an Italian court handed out guilty verdicts on Wednesday for three of four Google employees charged in a case concerning a 2006 Google Video clip posted of a teenager with autism.

The judge in the case, Oscar Magi, gave suspended six-month jail sentences for privacy invasion to David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer; Peter Fleischer, Google's chief privacy counsel; and George Reyes, Google's former chief financial officer. They weren't convicted on defamation charges, though, and a fourth Google employee, Arvind Desikan, was cleared of all charges, … Read more

Top boxer threatens Facebook over hate groups

Boxing's popularity seems to have been overtaken by such pleasures as mixed martial arts and American Idol over the last few years. This doesn't seem to have discouraged Facebook users from forming groups around their love of expressing hate for certain boxers.

According to the Telegraph, WBA World light-welterweight champion Amir Khan, a Briton of Pakistani heritage, has decided to threaten the social-networking company with legal action over some of these Facebook groups.

Together with his manager, Frank Warren, Khan has employed legal counsel after so far failing to persuade Facebook to take down so-called hate groups aimed … Read more

Twitter post gets renter sued by landlord

She only had 15 Twitter followers.

And, according to CBS2 Chicago, Amanda Bonnen, a local resident, wanted those followers to know about her mold.

Well, not her mold exactly, but the mold she claimed had taken up residence in her residence.

So she reportedly tweeted: "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

Horizon Realty appears not to think it's OK, as the company has sued Bonnen for publishing false and defamatory information in her tweet. (Her Twitter account is now inactive.)

The suit suggests that Horizon Realty … Read more

U.K. court clears Google search in defamation case

A court in the United Kingdom has ruled Google isn't on the hook for defamatory information in its search results, saying the company facilitates access to the information but isn't a direct publisher.

The High Court judge, David Eady, offered his conclusion Thursday in a case pitting Metropolitan International Schools, a distance learning company, against Google UK and its U.S. headquarters. The school had argued that a posting on Digital Trends forums calling one class a "scam" was defamatory, and that Google was liable too since a snippet from the forum appeared in its search … Read more

Guilty pleasures: 5 celebrity gossip sites revealed

Most folks don't want to admit it, so I'll lead the charge: I can't get enough of celebrity gossip sites.

Each day, I'll surf to my favorites and find out everything I wanted to know about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and other celebs. It's my guilty pleasure. And by the looks of things, especially if we are to believe a post written by Perez Hilton's founder, which claims his site had 13.9 million page views Monday, I'm not alone.

So let's take a look at some of the prominent celebrity gossip sites across the Web and find out why they're so intriguing.

Defamer Although Defamer was originally a separate entity under the Gawker Media umbrella, the company's founder and CEO, Nick Denton, announced recently that the site would become a section on Gawker.com to streamline business operations. And although it's not the most popular of the celebrity gossip sites, it's still worth visiting.

The content on Defamer is interesting, but I've found that it tends to be a little late in its reporting, and it's not nearly as compelling as sites like TMZ or Perez Hilton. In fact, despite its name, Defamer is decidedly "nicer" than the competition, and its tries to be more news-oriented than some sites that simply post pictures and comment on the way a particular celebrity looks.

I don't mind that Defamer has chosen to go that way, but as a major Perez Hilton fan, I enjoy the occasional snark.

Perez Hilton If you haven't been to Perez Hilton to find out all the juicy details on A-list celebs like Angelina Jolie or D-list celebs like LC (Lauren Conrad) from "The Hills," you probably haven't spent enough time on the Web. Believe it or not, this site is, in its own strange way, a Web institution.

Rather than posting videos, a la TMZ, Perez Hilton boasts some of the funniest and most eye-popping stories on celebrities anywhere on the Web. The site is filled with pictures Perez finds of celebrities living their daily lives, which are then edited to include mean-spirited or (at times) nice comments. That said, many of the edits made to the pictures by Perez are adult in nature, so it's best if you read this blog when the kids are asleep.

Perez Hilton has been around for years, and the site's founder, Mario Lavandeira Jr., is one of the most hated people in Hollywood. He doesn't mince any words, and his blog posts, while short, are biting and shoot straight from the hip.

Unlike sites like Defamer, Perez often breaks big stories and has shots of celebrities hours before other gossip sites. Because Perez Hilton is the biggest site in the space, Lavandeira has been cited in a slew of lawsuits, and some celebrities criticize him, saying he goes easy on some and unnecessarily hard on others. He claims that he's tough on everyone.

Regardless, Perez Hilton is a must-see for celebrity watchers. The blog posts are sometimes serious, often funny, and always entertaining. … Read more

Gawker to absorb Defamer gossip blog

Updated at 4:35 p.m. PST with Denton e-mail.

Gawker Media has apparently had a change of heart regarding the sale of its Defamer gossip site and decided to fold it into the larger company.

Nick Denton, founder and president of Gawker Media, announced the move Sunday in a company blog:

It's Oscars day, a good a time as any to do this: Hollywood gossip site Defamer is being merged into Gawker, the company's flagship gossip title. The four-year-old title will continue as Gawker's entertainment column; the movie-industry stories will remain showcased on Defamer.com but … Read more