A Berthoud-based Internet service provider will not have to hand over customer names after the upscale fashion retailer suing for the information decided to drop the case.
Skybeam Inc., the service provider, was fighting a federal magistrate judge’s order to produce the names, arguing that doing so would trample on the free-speech rights of anonymous Internet commenters. Retailer Façonnable was seeking the names in a defamation suit to figure out who posted what the retailer said were untrue statements about it on Wikipedia.
But Façonnable decided the drop the case last week after, according to a court document, the company received assurances from one anonymous commenter’s attorney that the commenter wasn’t a representative of a competing company. No money was paid nor was an apology made, according to the document, and Façonnable never learned the commenter’s identity.
An attorney for Façonnable did not return a call for comment.
With no case underlying it, the debate over the magistrate’s ruling to produce the names lost its purpose. U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello, who was reviewing the magistrate’s ruling at Skybeam’s request, vacated the subpoena to Skybeam.
Paul Levy, an attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen Litigation Group who represented Skybeam, said the two developments were not coincidental.
“Façonnable really wasn’t up for describing the reasons why its victory on the subpoena should be sustained,” he said.
While Levy said he would have preferred to duke it out with Façonnable over the free-speech issues, he said he is glad to see the case resolved.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
