Cases

Bunt v Tilley & Others

Held

Dismissing the claims:

(1) it would be wrong to attribute liability at common law to a telephone company or other passive medium of communication, such as an ISP: the position of an ISP is not analogous to that of a distributor of defamatory material;

(2) further, the ISPs were “information society service” providers within the definition of the Electronic Commerce Regulations. As such, they would have available to them the "mere conduit", "caching" and "hosting" defences of Regulations 17, 18 and 19, where they were without knowledge of their customers' postings. Similarly, section 1 of the Defamation Act 1996 would afford an ISP a complete defence in relation to any claim brought over postings of which it had not been put on notice;

(3) this was also a case (as brought against the ISPs) which engaged the public policy considerations concerning abuse of process highlighted by Jameel v Dow Jones

Also