On 26/09/2007, Armed Blowfish <diodontida.armata(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
On 26/09/2007, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A name is not a unique identifier.
I don't see how anyone could claim
something is defamation when it's
not even about them.
If I recall correctly, in the UK, the
burden of evidence is on them to prove
that they are referred to. In order
for that requirement to be met, you
don't actually have to mean that
person; rather, the public must
associate the statement with that
person. Some people's names are more
common than others. For people with
less common names - ones uncommon
enough that Wikipaedia would show up
as the first Google result - they
probably stand a good chance of
qualifying. For particularly common
names, they probably don't, unless
more details are given to pin it down
to them.
The public is only going to be able to identify someone by their name
alone if they are a public figure. If someone registers with the name
of a public figure as their username they are blocked until they can
prove they are who they say they are. I'm not sure what kind of
message is put on their user pages, but if it's something that
wouldn't look good on a Google search, I'm sure it can be changed.
There is a slight risk that a minor public figure might not be
recognised by anyone checking usernames, but the more minor the public
figure, the less liable we would be, so I don't think there is a
serious risk.