Cyberlibel And Hyperlinks: A Victory For Freedom Of Internet Communication

Is a hyperlinker who creates a hyperlink to a website containing defamatory statements liable for "publishing" the defamatory statements in the site? The answer is no.

In the seminal cyberlibel decision of Crookes v. Newton, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that the traditional common law rules of defamation cannot be applied to hyperlinks. The Court imposed a different standard of defamation law regarding the publication rule for hyperlinks than that which applies to print and broadcast media.

Hyperlinks Do Not Publish Defamatory Statements Found in the Linked Site

The traditional publication rule requires only that the libel plaintiff prove that the defendant has, by any act, conveyed defamatory meaning to a single third party who has received it: any act that has the effect of transferring the defamatory information to a third person constitutes a publication. The majority of the Court recognized that applying the traditional publication rule