The Irish Red Cross Sues Google To Silence Anonymous Blogger, Amplifying That Blogger's Message

from the and-that-backfired dept

Fri, Aug 6th 2010 10:48am — Mike Masnick

Claire Ryan wrote in to let us know about the bizarre situation in Ireland, where the Irish Red Cross has sued Google in an attempt to identify and silence an anonymous blogger who has been very critical of the organization. It's worth noting, by the way, that Google is apparently one of the Red Cross' largest donors. Apparently, the Irish Red Cross is specifically upset that the blogger claimed that $150,000 that the Irish Red Cross collected for the Asian tsunami appeal was not actually used for that. Instead, the blogger claims, it was held in a bank for years, and the money was only moved after there was an audit which discovered the account.

Of course, it sounds like nearly everything about the Irish Red Cross' decision to go legal is backfiring. This story, which wasn't getting much attention, is now getting a ton of attention -- and it's not looking good for the Irish Red Cross. Apparently, because of the publicity over the Irish Red Cross' decision to sue Google, The Sunday Times ran a front page article about the $150,000.

In other words, by suing to try to silence the blogger over this particular issue, the issue itself has become front page news. But what's not clear is why the IRC is still going after this blogger. Now that the news is everywhere, what good does it do to try to silence this guy? Will they sue The Sunday Times next?

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Filed Under: anonymity, defamation, ireland, red cross
Companies: google, irish red cross

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:00am

I gotta make a song.

Streisand, Streisand, Streisand, Streisand.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:14am

Next
They'll sue everyone that gets the times or reads Techdirt.
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PRMan, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:25am

There are plenty of Red Cross horror stories...
Just search Google.

Here's a summary of some of their questionable actions:

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/bad-week-for-the-red-cross/
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:40am

Litigation is the tripwire to the modern spotlight.
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Per Son, 6 Aug 2010 @ 11:45am

Google as a Donor to Red Cross
Google is a highly valued partner, but not a particularly large donor to the International Red Cross.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 12:21pm

They are making an example out of him. How dare you expose them? They are just taking the hit now so they can squash any future exposures.
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Damian Byrne (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 12:22pm

Not a peep
I live in Dublin Ireland, and today is the first I've heard of this. Every day in work, during my lunchbreak, I read three newspapers (Irish Independent, Evening Herald and either Daily Star/Daily Express). And yet, none of these papers had so much as a peep on this.
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bob, 6 Aug 2010 @ 1:25pm

Re: Not a peep
Time to read the Times?
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Damian Byrne (profile), 6 Aug 2010 @ 2:22pm

Re: Re: Not a peep
Instead of making smart-alecky comments, no I can't read the times. The store I work in doesn't sell the Times, and I don't want to waste my lunch-hour wandering around just to find one specific paper.
I wrote that comment to show how a big story like this gets pushed to the back-burner really quickly. At the moment in Ireland, the major stories going around are our politician's expense accounts. Until they blow over, I won't hear a thing about these other kinds of stories.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 9:30pm

Re: There are plenty of Red Cross horror stories...
That's the American Red Cross, not the Irish Red Cross.
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bdhoro, 7 Aug 2010 @ 6:51am

Oh Mrs. Streisand
What a wonderful teacher she was...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2010 @ 7:34am

Re: Re: There are plenty of Red Cross horror stories...
According to the website the Irish Central-

"The blogger claimed that $200,000 was collected for the Asian Tsunami relief in early 2005 but was never sent and was in an undisclosed bank account until 2008. He claimed the money was then transferred and acknowledged after an internal inquiry and the matter covered up."
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Adam, 10 Aug 2010 @ 1:06pm

Re: Google as a Donor to Red Cross
Yes they are, as Google puts in a lot of money in free advertisement for Red Cross each month. It's called google grants, and in that sense Google "donates" free advertisment to IRC. Also a lot of Google's annual donations of their surplus goes to the red cross, among those, the IRC.
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