Verizon Communications said on Monday it would sell its blogging website Tumblr to Automattic Inc., the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com. The company did not disclose the terms of the deal.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case. The appeals court ruled that the trustee was not a public figure, which could have invoked an even higher standard of showing the writer acted with malice, but the issue was of public concern, so the negligence standard applied.
On Tom Wheeler’s second day as chairman of the FCC, or as he called it, the “optimism agency,” Wheeler blogged. He talked about himself, the staff he appointed on Monday, the FCC’s place in history, and he began to set the framework for a Wheeler-led FCC policy. Call him the blogging chairman. No other FCC chair shared as much of himself or his point of view as quickly and as openly. Wheeler’s blog post, was based on remarks he delivered Tuesday to the FCC staff.
A U.S. District Court judge in Portland, Ore., made a distinction between blogger and journalist, ruling that Crystal Cox, who runs several law-centric blogs, is not a journalist and ordering her to pay $2.5 million to the investment firm that sued her for defamation.
