Saturday, April 21, 2007

Wayne Crookes sues Google, Wikipedia

Wayne Crookes sues Google, Wikipedia

p2pnet.net news:- Wayne Crookes, the Green Party of Canada's ex-financier, is in effect trying to sue the Net.

He's going after the Wikiedia, Google and openpolitics.ca, a Toronto site, claiming he's, "suffered an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress" over postings on Google's Blogspot.com, within an entry under his name in Wikipedia, and on openpolitics.ca, run up by Michael Pilling [right], an Ontario and federal Green Party activist.

Some 15 others may also have been targeted by Crookes, I understand.

"Mr Crookes seems to be trying to unwrite history and I don't think that's fair for the people of this country," Pilling told p2pnet. "He was a central figure in the growth of the Green Party. His actions were highly controversial and if we have freedom of speech in this country, people should be allowed to talk about them."

The lawsuit against Google was filed in British Columbia Supreme Court on April 16, says the Globe and Mail, going on:
It states that last summer, six anonymous defendants put libellous comments on Blogspot's The Green Compost Heap under passages labelled 'Wayne Crookes' and the 'Gang of Crookes.' Wayne Crookes, a Vancouver businessman and Green organizer, is suing three Internet sites for libel.

The suit against Wikipedia was filed on April 17. In this case, an article on Mr. Crookes written under the pseudonym of 'Indyperson' repeated some of the comments that appeared on The Green Compost Heap. The lawsuit against openpolitics.ca was made in May, 2006, and stems from postings in early 2005.

"I resent very much irresponsible statements made very recklessly. I'm determined that the people who have acted so irresponsibly will find that there are consequences," The Globe and Mail has Crookes saying. "I hope that the outcome is that people will realize they have obligations and that they will be forced to accept responsibility for their actions. The larger the organization, the greater the expectation that they will be held accountable for their actions."

Pilling found himself on the receiving end of a libel suit after a contributor posted an article on openpolitics.ca about then Green Party financier Crookes, who later claimed parts of the posting disparaged him and were untrue.

Pilling edited it, only to have the reader repost the content shortly afterwards and when Crookes objected again, Pilling explained how Crookes could use the site to contribute his own point of view.

"Democracy requires open debate. The purpose of my site is to give everyone an opportunity to express their position, and hope people start listening to each other," said Pilling at the time. "Instead, I was served with a lawsuit."

According to the Globe and Mail, Dermod Travis, a former communications director for the Green Party who's Crookes' spokesman, said the defendants "chose not to respond appropriately when put on notice that they [had] crossed a line".

"The American headquarters of both Google and Wikipedia declined to comment as they had not yet been served with the writ," says the story.

"Until 2003 the Party had little capacity to organize itself between elections, and as late as 2000 the party had no persistent infrastructure, and was based out of the same office as the Green Party of Ontario," says the Wikipedia.

"It received substantial loans from Wayne Crookes, a BC businessman who had previously also made large donations to the Green Party of British Columbia. Crookes has launched a lawsuit against Google, Wikipedia and the Canadian political blog site Openpolitics.ca for allowing supposedly libelous statements to be made about him."

Stay tuned.

7 comments:

Nematode said...

He has all kinds of lawsuits!

See http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/ [pbwiki.com]

See

http://section15.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-am-being-s ued-by-wayne-crookes.html

He is soooing this little worm for writing this:

http://greencompostheap.blogspot.com/2006/08/blow-it-out-your-tailpipe.html

and yet it is all true!

Anonymous said...

Wayne Crookes and his "gang of Crookes", including Dermod Travis who was his proxy at both the Green Party of Canada and later when he filed the lawsuits, aren't exactly the kind of people one would want as poster boys to represent victims of genuine net harassment.

Most such victims haven't taken over political parties using questionable means, silenced dissent with lawsuits, used their company (West Coast Title Search) as a proxy to attack political enemies, and called press conferences to call attention to themselves suing Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia which most people regard as public services. He seems to be calling Google "reckless" here.

Well if so they are still reckless because Wayne Crookes and his gang of Crookes are pretty visible still on Google. Tough luck.

And why is his company, West Coast Title Search, involved at all? It is a fair bet that the first time Google or Yahoo ever heard of it was when it sued them. Good luck with your page rank, West Coast Title Search. -p ~ ~

Crookes' own position is that Google should eradicate certain things from the net selectively based on their own business and legal interests. Making West Coast Title Search totally invisible on Google seems like a better start than censoring any political commentators.

Anonymous said...

This dude is one sniveling little weasel.. What a way to make a living by suing everyone he runs into.. Go cry to mommy Wayne.. you little shit!

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Anonymous said...

http://greencompostheap.blogspot.com/2006/08/blow-it-out-your-tailpipe.htm is long gone.

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