ST. LOUIS, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- The number of lawsuits against online bloggers in the United States is steadily increasing, the Citizen Media Law Project says.
The group dedicated to assisting online and citizen media participants said compared with the four 1997 lawsuits against bloggers and online publishers, a total of 89 similar lawsuits were filed last year alone, The St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch said Monday.
Nationwide there have been 280 legal actions against the online writers including a Florida case in which a defamation verdict ordered a woman to pay $11.3 million for derogatory comments she posted online about an organization head.
David Ardia of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which is working in conjunction with the Citizen Media group, said blogging has become a reputable point of litigation nationwide in recent years.
"In fact, every time someone publishes anything online, whether it's a news article, blog post, podcast, video or even a user comment, they open themselves up to potential legal liability," the center fellow said.
