CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT? BURN DOWN THE KITCHEN! Scorned Attorney Threatens to Take Down Lawyer-Review Site.

A Florida lawyer unhappy with poor reviews posted in an online attorney review site is threatening legal action to shutter the LawyerRatingz.com site.

In response to the threatened legal action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked a federal judge Thursday to declare the website immune from any threatened legal action on the matter. The EFF contends that, even if third-party comments about attorneys are defamatory, federal law immunizes the Sunnyvale-based website from being sued for the speech of its users. . . . The EFF, in a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, said LawyerRatingz.com is protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says “interactive computer services” cannot be “treated as the publisher or speaker of any information” provided by a third party.

That seems right to me. I don’t think this takedown effort reflects any better on this lawyer — whose name, for the record, is Adrian Philip Thomas — than the ratings did.