Blumenthal v. Drudge

The district court first determined that it had personal jurisdiction over the dispute, per precedents such as Zippo Manufacturing Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc. in which it was determined that the availability of a website in a court's territory satisfied minimum contacts for jurisdiction.^[9] Jurisdiction was also provided by the District of Columbia's long-arm statute because the injuries were suffered by the Blumenthals within the D.C. area.^[1]

Thus, the motion to dismiss the case against Drudge was denied. However, AOL was successful in its motion to dismiss, due to the protections granted against legal liability for Internet service providers by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.^[5] That protection was not available to Drudge as the author of the content, and the Blumenthals continued their suit against him. The Blumenthals and Drudge reached an out-of-court settlement in 2001.^[7] Sidney Blumenthal later claimed that he was forced to drop the lawsuit against Drudge because he could not afford the mounting legal fees.^[10]

In a later proceeding, the district court determined that Drudge qualified for the reporter's privilege under the First Amendment freedom of the press, and would not have to divulge his sources for the original story on the Blumenthals.^[11] This addressed the question of whether Drudge's online reporting and commentary made him a practicing journalist.^[5]

While it was in progress, Blumenthal v. Drudge attracted significant media speculation over whether the court would take the opportunity to address new legal questions surrounding defamation and journalism on the Internet, which at the time were unsettled. There were also questions of whether online speech qualified for the highest level of First Amendment protection, as journalism and political speech did,^[7] and whether an online commentator who talks about news and politics could be considered a journalist.^[6] The ruling did not completely settle the question of whether established freedoms for professional print/television journalists would always apply online.^[7] Some commentators have also argued that while the ruling clarified AOL's protection against liability for Drudge's defamatory comments, it may have also gone beyond the intentions of Congress when passing Section 230.^[12]