In a stunning decision, an Ontario Superior court judge has ruled that defamatory information posted to the Internet can fall under the same Libel laws that cover newspapers, radio and television. The decision exposes Internet publishers to potentially far higher damages as the number of people who might have access to a particular article or website is obviously far larger than those who might read a local newspaper or listen to a local radio newscast.

Justice Helen Pierce of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that while the Internet uses the same “infrastructure” as radio and television, it can reach a wider audience than either. “The court must recognize and give effect to the purpose of the act—including the mischief it seeks to ameliorate,” she said. “In this act, that harm is the widespread damage to reputation when a mass audience receives defamatory material.”

Justice Pierce also defined a strict statute of limitations to lawsuits arising from perceived libel of six weeks from the date of publication. If a plaintiff does not issue notice of suit within that time frame, the perceived offence is considered moot. The plaintiff then has three months to file a statement of claim in court in order to initiate proceedings. These time limits are designed to offer the defendant time to offer an apology and retraction.

Justice Pierce's ruling is the first time a Canadian court has decided the issue of whether an Internet posting qualifies as a broadcast under provincial libel and slander legislation. This ruling adds a layer of international precedent to a December 11, 2002 decision by the High Court of Australia which allowed an Australian mining magnate, Joseph Gutnick to sue the Dow Jones owned magazine Barrons for defamation in an Australian court even though Dow Jones Inc is registered in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Basically, these rulings mean that within the British Commonwealth, the international nature of the Internet does not displace the laws of individual nation states and that registration and hosting in one jurisdiction does not offer protection from the laws of another.

Already owning over 90% of the South Korean search engine market through cross deals with the three largest ISP's in South Korea, Overture officially launched its South Korean website today. With over 26Million Internet users, South Korea is the logical jumping off point for Overture in its bid to be the Google of eastern Asia. "Having secured a solid foothold in Japan, the launch of Overture in South Korea, with its growing economy and high levels of broadband penetration, further solidifies our global market leadership.", says Overture International GM, Johannes Larcher.

Following the South Korean launch, Overture plans wide expansion of its search services over the rest of the year. The company expects to grow into Italy in the second quarter, followed by Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia by the end of 2003. Overture currently has operations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan.

The company's ambitions also include growing into other forms of search, going beyond its bread-and-butter pay-for-placement search products to better compete with rival Google. Yesterday, Overture closed its acquisition of the Web search unit of Fast Search and Transfer. It also has an agreement in place to acquire the AltaVista Company.

From Thursday June 3rd, 2004 to Monday June 7th, 2004, the city of Victoria will host the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans Association Annual General Meeting. StepForth was honored to be asked to design and optimize the official AGM website.

Aside from debating issues pertaining to police work and RCMP veterans, the retired RCMP members will enjoy west coast hospitality, golf, and cultural events, all in one of the most beautiful settings in the world.
http://rcmpvetsagm2004.com/ Welcome to Victoria, RCMP Vets!

Recently, StepForth articles have been published on several search engine industry and news websites. Here are a few questions posed by some of the readers.

Dear StepForth,
I read your article in Search Engine Guide today. We are trying to optimize our site for search engines. My question is how important the alt tags are for images? Our site does use a lot of images, but I don't like the pop-ups that come up from the alt tags. Is there any way to work around this?

Thanks for the interesting article, and your insight.
- RW

Dear RW,
Alt tags on images make a minor difference. They do have an effect on Google and AlltheWeb Image search engines but do not have a huge effect on traditional search engine rankings. If the use of Alt tags is annoying to you or your potential clients, we would advise not using them. In some sectors, competition for high rankings is so intense, we would apply Alt tags just to get the extra 1 - 2% advantage. If you do use Alt tags, try to place your keyword phrases near the beginning of the tag and construct a complete sentence or title within the tag.

Dear StepForth,
I just read your very informative pages on web site optimisation and was puzzled about the Hidden Text paragraph. Recently on Site Solutions I read that putting hidden words that are in your Meta Tag Keywords into your page.if you do not have them on there already. would help. These words are between <.> tags and not the same color as the background. The Homepage in question is the first one below. After reading your comments I wonder if I have done a risky thing. I am coming up number one in Google in searches for Arabian Horse Paintings and number seven in searches for Arabian Horse Art so naturally I would hate to do anything to jeopardize these rankings. Should I take them off.?
Your comments would be gratefully received,
- Lesley

Dear Leslie,
Your keywords are contained within comment tags. These tags are generally left by site developers as building notes for themselves or future developers.

< ! Arabian horse art and Arabian Horse Paintings>
<! Arabian Horse prints and Arabian Horse Cards>

I wouldn't worry too much about them. I haven't heard anything against them as of today but. search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to weed out "spam". You also have comment tags reading as such:

< !-- // This Script was made with ASS Maker 3.1 (c)2000-2001 A.Madeira
// http://www.assmaker.mybravenet.com>

Somehow, I don't think they are having much effect on your SE rankings one way or another. At any rate, you're not putting your rankings in peril.

StepForth Placement Services

Editors Note: While we do not condone the use of comment tags to keyword-stuff a web page, this use of a comment tag is permitted and often utilized within such design tools as Dreamweaver.