ABSTRACT
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate a criterion of potential consequences of liability of an Internet portal for unlawful comments of its visitors and set certain general way-marks, which would apply to cases of this kind.
Research methodology – The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in four cases (Delfi AS v Estonia, MTE & Index v Hungary, Pihl v Sweden and Tamiz v the United Kingdom) on whether civil liability can be justified to the website operators for anonymous comments made on their portals that violate the right to privacy. One of the criteria of such evaluation was the possible negative consequences of the civil liability of these entities, but its content and meaning have not been thoroughly studied in the doctrine. Therefore the authors analyse the content of this criterion on the basis of a comparative method. Taking into account the legal context of this study, specific methods of legal interpretation are used in this article (such as, systemic, teleologic, historical).
Findings – Authors conclude that addressing the civil liability of website operators for damages caused by anonymous comments violating the right to privacy must consider not only the financial, and not only ad hoc, short- and long-term adverse effects of the website operators in general, but the impact of the ruling on the concept of free media and other property and non-material consequences for a democratic society as a whole …
Vaidas Jurkevičius and Jūratė Šidlauskienė, Civil Liability Of Companies For Anonymous Comments Posted on their Sites: A Criterion of Potential Consequences of Liability, Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 2021, 19(1): 1–11. Received 24 May 2020; accepted 28 May 2020.
First posted 2021-02-15 06:16:34
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