Legal Question in Technology Law in New Jersey

Re: Internet Harrassment and Fraud

Sue.

Your challenge will be in matters of proof. First, you have to be able to convince the jury that this person was the one who made the false statements. Your own statements will have less credibility than another expert who is not involved. There is also the problem of educating a jury to the point where they understand the connection between identity and IP addresses.

There is a similar issue with proving damages. Although a court can award punitive damages in a libel case, being able to prove some actual damage helps.

Racist comments help your case since there is no justifyable commercial reason for them. It is not defamation to offer an opinion about your products no matter how severe. That would merely be an opinion to which anyone is entitled. However, racism goes outside of the bound of critical comment on your products and makes your claim stronger.

You should consider discussing the specifics of your claims with a lawyer who is familiar with defamation and business tort suits. Sometimes simply the threat of a credible lawsuit will stop the problem. Be prepared to make a convincing case on the IP address issue. By first profession, I am and electrical engineer and computer scientist; I can see the connection. However, many good lawyers have no more Internet technical background than the average PC user and will be skeptical about how you could trace the IP addresses back to their source. There will be a natural inclination to ask the question, "if you can trace back to this individual, why is it that no one can trace back to the spammer that keeps trying to sell me Rolex knockoffs?"