Expert: Michael Troy - 3/31/2006

Question
Michael,
Do you have any legal information regarding the posting of someone else's personal information (full name, occupation with directions to their workplace, family's names and occupations, family's personal websites, and/or pictures) on a popular message board without permission?  Thanks in advance!
Nicole

Answer
Hi Nicole,

In general, publishing publicly available information about a person, including name, address, occupation, etc. is protected by the First Amendment.  

There are sometimes exceptions.  If information was  posted in a way that is deemed to be a threat to the person or a way of helping people who may want to do the person harm, that could be actionable.  This happened when a pro-life group listed names and addresses of abortion doctors in such a way that a court found it was part of a conspiracy to harm them.

If information was obtained illegally or contains very personal information (e.g. sex habits) with out an newsworthy component, or if some of the material is inaccurate, that could be actionable as well.

If you want to explore this further, you may find this article helpful:

http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/RHandbook01.nsf/1119bd38ae090a748525676f0053...

I hope this helps!
- Mike