On 26/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
On 26/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@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.