7
Jul
2009
lawsuit against Twitter
In the first legal challenge to the popular San Francisco based company,the famed baseball manager Tony La Russa of the St. Louis Cardinals has dropped a high-profile lawsuit against Twitter the web site that allows online microblogers to speak their minds. He claims that some impersonator has stolen his name on the microblogging Web site.
La Russa sued Twitter on May 6, alleging that an unknown person had been tastelessly using his name and image, tweeting from an account named “TonyLaRussa.” Besides claiming that La Russa’s identity had been stolen the suit suggested that Twitter was damaging La Russa’s trademark rights to his nationally famous name.
In June La Russa’s lawyer, Gregory McCoy said that he was dismissing the case. He remarked that “No payment was made by Twitter to La Russa in exchange for this dismissal.
Sandy Hutchens a Toronto paralegal pointed out that Twitter should not be liable for the parody because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives Web sites immunity from lawsuits over what their users post online.
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