In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has found that posting a hyper-link to defamatory material doesn’t leave the person posting it open to lawsuits. The court likened hyperlinks to footnotes and said they should not be seen as publication of the content they are linking to. It said:“The Internet cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks,” the judgement read. “Limiting their usefulness by subjecting them to the traditional publication rule would have the effect of seriously restricting the flow of information and, as a result, freedom of expression. The potential “chill” in how the Internet functions could be devastating, since primary article authors would unlikely want to risk liability for linking to another article over whose changeable content they have no control. The case was pursued to the high court by a west coast man who felt he had been libelled by various website that linked to a page which carried alleged defamation.
