According to website reports, it appears that the High Court ordered that UPC and Google reveal the name of an anonymous blogger who allegedly breached confidentiality on the Blogger website. Originally Google Ireland was named as defendant but the court permitted Google Inc to be substituted.
Record companies had reached a settlement with a large ISP (Eircom) instituting a graduated response system. The court ordered, on application by the record companies, that Eircom should block access to the Pirate Bay website. The court based its decision on s.40(4) of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and the Information Society Directive 2001.
Betfair was a gambling site which also operated internet forums (chatrooms) where users could discuss sports events and other issues. The plaintiffs alleged defamation by forum users. As a preliminary issue, Betfair successfully relied on the hosting defence in the E-Commerce Directive as implemented by the 2003 Regulations. The court found that the gambling exception to the Directive and Regulations did not apply as the forums were not directly connected to the gambling part of the site.
The legislation governing defamation in Ireland. Includes a defence of innocent publication in s.27. A court may make an order prohibiting publication of a defamatory statement under s.33. The Act also contains an offence of blasphemy in s.36.
This was an action against the operators and moderator of an internet site and bulletin board set up to facilitate discussions by Ryanair pilots. Ryanair alleged that bullying and intimidation of pilots was taking place on the site and sought ‘Norwich Pharmacal’ orders to disclose the identities of certain users of the bulletin board. On reviewing the evidence, Smyth J. found that there was no evidence of bullying or intimidation or that Ryanair had suffered loss. He distinguished this case from EMI v Eircom, 2005 (see below) and the English case of Totalise v Motley Fool 2001 EWCA Civ 1897. He also stated that a balance needed to be struck between justice and privacy.
The Privacy Bill was published by the previous Government in 2006 but has not been enacted. In 2012, the Minister for Justice stated that he was considering re-introducing a version of this Bill.