Rulings limit grievances online

By Stephanie Armour
USA Today

Employers are winning key legal victories against former workers who criticize them online.

Rulings in the waning days of 2001 could have a chilling effect on workers' use of cyberspace for years to come, civil libertarians say. The battle over Internet free speech also is heating up as more companies crack down on online grousing by laid-off workers.

Recent cases include:

• Steep jury awards. In December, Varian Medical Systems of Palo Alto, Calif., won a $775,000 jury verdict in an Internet defamation and harassment lawsuit against former employees.

Company officials say two former workers acted with malice by putting up some 14,000 postings on 100 message boards accusing managers of being homophobic and of discriminating against the pregnant, officials say.

The defendants say the verdict will stifle free speech.

• New legal precedents. Last month a California appeals court ruled against a fired Intel employee, Ken Hamidi, who had sent e-mails to as many as 35,000 workers airing grievances about the company; Intel officials say they acted only after asking him to stop.

The court ruled Hamidi's e-mails amounted to trespassing.

Saying the ruling stifled free speech, some civil libertarians predict it will be used by other companies who want to bar former workers from e-mailing staffers.

• More legal action. More firms are taking action to unmask anonymous posters. Pittsburgh-based software firm printCafe is taking legal action to learn the identity of anonymous posters that lambasted the company on a Web site. Officials say the postings were defamatory and a misappropriation of confidential information.

"It's not about the First Amendment," said Terry Budd, a lawyer for printCafe, a provider of software and Internet-based products for the print industry. "It's to stop people from spreading vicious lies."

A number of state courts, have ruled, however, that the identities of anonymous posters can't be revealed unless a company first shows the potential for libel or damages.