Greenbaum v. Google

On the eve of her campaign for re-election, a member of the school board in Lawrence, New York, filed a petition for prelitigation discovery to identify the owner of a blog and people who used the the blog to post criticisms of the board member’s position in opposition to public funding for the extracurricular activities of children attending private religious schools. Public Citizen represented the blog owner, arguing that a blogger cannot be held liable for comments posted by other people, and that in any event the comments at issue in the case were not defamatory and that compelled identification would violate the blog owner’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The trial judge granted the motion to quash.