http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-07-04/In_the_news
A French court decision issued on July 1st (as reported on lefigaro.fr) awarded the company Rentabiliweb €25,000 (US$36,000) in damage and interest from its competitor Hi-Media, on the basis of a single Wikipedia edit that had removed mention of Rentabiliweb (and a link to their website) from a list of vendors in the French Wikipedia's article on micropayment. The IP used for the anonymous edit, conducted in 2008, was held to be that "of a device belonging to Hi-Media". The Paris court rejected Hi-Media's objection that this method of determining the author of the edit was illegal (as an intrusion of privacy), since an IP address did not directly provide the person who used the computer, but on the other hand held that because the computer had been installed on Hi-Media's premises, "Rentabiliweb offered sufficient proof that it was a person acting under the authorization of Hi-Media which was the author of the deletion". Rentabiliweb initially claimed €150,000 in damages, but the court reduced the sum to €25,000, as there had been no detailed justification, and also because "Wikipedia does not appear to the site where an Internet user will habitually search for suppliers of services". (Because Rentabiliweb itself was found guilty of two other actions - unrelated to Wikipedia - for which Hi-Media was awarded €50,000 in damages each, the entire case still resulted in Rentabiliweb having to compensate Hi-Media for a sum of €75,000.)
See also
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0Umg35sWCPhNjdlOWUzZjItOWUxYi00ZDgzLTk4OWQtMjdjMDY2N2UyNjhj&hl=en_US&pli=1
A French court decision issued on July 1st (as reported on lefigaro.fr) awarded the company Rentabiliweb €25,000 (US$36,000) in damage and interest from its competitor Hi-Media, on the basis of a single Wikipedia edit that had removed mention of Rentabiliweb (and a link to their website) from a list of vendors in the French Wikipedia's article on micropayment. The IP used for the anonymous edit, conducted in 2008, was held to be that "of a device belonging to Hi-Media". The Paris court rejected Hi-Media's objection that this method of determining the author of the edit was illegal (as an intrusion of privacy), since an IP address did not directly provide the person who used the computer, but on the other hand held that because the computer had been installed on Hi-Media's premises, "Rentabiliweb offered sufficient proof that it was a person acting under the authorization of Hi-Media which was the author of the deletion". Rentabiliweb initially claimed €150,000 in damages, but the court reduced the sum to €25,000, as there had been no detailed justification, and also because "Wikipedia does not appear to the site where an Internet user will habitually search for suppliers of services". (Because Rentabiliweb itself was found guilty of two other actions - unrelated to Wikipedia - for which Hi-Media was awarded €50,000 in damages each, the entire case still resulted in Rentabiliweb having to compensate Hi-Media for a sum of €75,000.)
See also
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0Umg35sWCPhNjdlOWUzZjItOWUxYi00ZDgzLTk4OWQtMjdjMDY2N2UyNjhj&hl=en_US&pli=1
KlausGraf - am Dienstag, 5. Juli 2011, 19:28 - Rubrik: English Corner
