The Volokh Conspiracy - Some of the AutoAdmit Pseudonymous Commenters Outed:

The Yale Daily News reports:

Anonymous commenting may have just gotten a little less anonymous.

With the help of a subpoena issued six months ago, attorneys for two Yale Law School students have succeeded in unmasking several anonymous users of the Web forum AutoAdmit whom the women are suing for defamation.

Some of the defendants will finally be named when the students soon file an amended complaint, said their attorney, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley, who declined to comment further....

In 2005, sexually explicit and derogatory posts targeting three female Yale Law students appeared on AutoAdmit, an online community where law students can discuss law-school admissions and law-firm life. Two of the students, who remain unnamed in the suit, filed against the 39 authors of the allegedly defamatory posts.

Since a federal judge in New Haven granted subpoenas of Internet service providers last January, several of those comments have been successfully traced through their electronic footprints.

One of those authors was "AK-47," who, in 2007, posted that women with one of the Yale Law students' names "should be raped" and said they were "gay lovers." ...

	[Eugene Volokh, July 31, 2008 at 7:45pm] Trackbacks Some of the AutoAdmit Pseudonymous Commenters Outed: The Yale Daily News reports: Anonymous commenting may have just gotten a little less anonymous. With the help of a subpoena issued six months ago, attorneys for two Yale Law School students have succeeded in unmasking several anonymous users of the Web forum AutoAdmit whom the women are suing for defamation. Some of the defendants will finally be named when the students soon file an amended complaint, said their attorney, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley, who declined to comment further.... In 2005, sexually explicit and derogatory posts targeting three female Yale Law students appeared on AutoAdmit, an online community where law students can discuss law-school admissions and law-firm life. Two of the students, who remain unnamed in the suit, filed against the 39 authors of the allegedly defamatory posts. Since a federal judge in New Haven granted subpoenas of Internet service providers last January, several of those comments have been successfully traced through their electronic footprints. One of those authors was "AK-47," who, in 2007, posted that women with one of the Yale Law students' names "should be raped" and said they were "gay lovers." ...