The Internet giant Yahoo Inc. and consumer opinion board RateItAll had until Friday to release the identities of five people who sent out anonymous Internet communications about Columbus' Cascade Hills Church and its pastor, the Rev. Bill Purvis. An order seeking the identities was signed Oct. 31 by Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Doug Pullen.
RateItAll's top executive said late Friday that he has not received the order from Pullen, and a spokesperson for Yahoo did not confirm whether the company had received it either.
Four e-mails were sent from Yahoo accounts. One posting is on RateItAll.com, which contains message boards on everything from products to preachers. Both companies are based in California.
The order Pullen signed is called a motion for order of discovery. The four-page document indicates the companies had 30 days to release information about the senders. The document states the church would like to know the senders' names, addresses, Internet Protocol addresses and Internet Service Provider numbers.
If the identities become known by the church leaders, they will then "ascertain whether or not further legal action is needed," the document states. As in most cases investigating Internet content, the church's concern is defamation and "tortious acts." A tort is any damage, injury or a wrongful act done willfully, negligently or in circumstances involving strict liability, according to Webster's.
"I recollect I signed it," Pullen said. "As I recall there was some former employee who had taken some intellectual property and was supposedly using it (against the church)." Intellectual property could include copyrighted material owned by the church such as video, audio or computer files.
In addition to Pullen, William Arey, a Cascade Hills member and Columbus attorney, signed the motion. Arey did not return phone calls this week seeking comment. A church employee said Purvis, who has led the church since 1983, was out of town and would not be back until next week.
Lawrence Coburn, CEO of RateItAll, said in an e-mail Friday that his company had not received the court document.
"We have only received a handful of requests for people's identities since we've been online," he said. The site was launched in 1999.
"The only information that we require to post a review is: e-mail address, nickname and password," Coburn said. "Therefore, we are unable to reveal people's true identities even if our privacy policy allowed us to, and it doesn't."
Julie Han with Yahoo's corporate communications office did not confirm whether Yahoo had received the document.
"Unfortunately, we are not at liberty to discuss any subpoenas or requests like this that are in motion," she wrote in an e-mail.
An e-mail sent
The four e-mail addresses used for Yahoo were chctruth4u, oldcascademember, bassmaster9993 and fearsnot. The RateItAll poster went by justthefactsmam.
Briana Ogletree used oldcascademember@yahoo.com. Ogletree left the church early this year after being a member about four years. She said her e-mail was sent to about 30 people, including Cascade Hills staff, informing them about the church's recent certificate of restated articles of corporation, signed by Purvis on Aug. 8. The restated articles are on the Georgia secretary of state's Web site, for which Ogletree provided a link in her October e-mail.
E-Mail
Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@