The Boston Globe reports:
A coastal Maine blogger who criticized the state's tourism office has been hit with a lawsuit seeking potentially more than $1 million in damages for allegedly making false statements and posting on his website, Maine Web Report, images from proposed tourism advertisements a New York agency prepared for Maine officials.
The case raises the issue of how free speech protection will be applied in the proliferating world of weblogs, or blogs, and underscores the growing influence of bloggers on business and government.
''It's a reflection of the extent to which businesses are taking critiques from the blogosphere very seriously," said John G. Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. ''Bloggers have gained enormous power."
Here's a gem from the Globe:
In the lawsuit, filed by the agency's attorney, Alfred C. Frawley III of Preti Flaherty in Portland, Maine, the plaintiff claims Dutson's blog ''contains numerous defamatory statements designed to blacken" the agency's reputation. As one example, the suit cites Dutson's claim that the advertising agency has been wasting Maine taxpayers' money in its work for the tourism department.
Imagine that! Someone criticizing the goverment for spending taxpayer dollars.It appears some people in Maine aren't for free speech.
