Dominick v. MySpace

Dominick vs. Myspace Inc. is a lawsuit filed by Larry Dominick on June 2008 against Myspace. The suit, filed in Cook County, Illinois, alleges that the defendant refused to release the name of the creator of a profile on their site.

Events in the case

In May 2008, Larry Dominick filed a Petition of Discovery within the Circuit Courty of Cook County, Illinois. He was trying to find information on the Myspace user/s that had created two false profiles of him. The petition called for the court to allow him to request the name of the Myspace user/s that had used his name in defamatory way, making him look bad.

Dominick's petition however was not complete in the facts that he did not identify anything said wrongly against him. He also did not describe the content of the Myspace page in detail of wrong things posted. Though according to the Chicago Tribune the pages had photos and comments AbOUT his ethics and sexuality. Myspace however, removed the profiles after Dominick's complaint.

The EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation) then got involved to defend the rights of the Myspace user/s, they were the Amicus Curiae. The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the judge to reject the effort of Dominick to find out the user/s names. They said that the request infringed the rights of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. They also argues that this also forbids the Stored Communications Act.In which it says "Government entities from obtaining identifying customer information through the ordinary civil discovery process". Matt Zimmerman, EFF Senior Staff Attorney, said this about Dominick's Petition and the user/s rights to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

"The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but to speak anonymously.If Mr. Dominick's claims are legitimate, he May Be able to obtain the identifying information that he seeks. Until he meets his burden, however -- including, among other things, attempting to notify the author of this court action and identifying the allegedly defamatory statements at issue -- the court should not grant his request. The First Amendment requires courts to guard against attempts to unmask critics who have simply made statements litigants don't like, especially when such requests are made by elected officials."

After a bit though, Mr. Dominick dropped the case on Myspace. This order was filed on June 13, 2008. It says that the order for petition for discovery is withdrawn, willingly. There for the matter of it is dismissed without chauvinism to the petitioners rights to refile. In his capacity as the President of the Town of Cicero or his individual capacity.