Demon was right on. In Britain, one must prove that one's statement was not libelous if one is challenged in court, which is really quite difficult, as proving a negative is very difficult. Thus, ISPs are forced to take the policy of "Anything in doubt must be censored (removed)." Certainly the ISPs (who are probably annoyed at this as much as we are) are not playing games, as the Gagging the Internet in Three Easy Steps article shows.

Demon had previously said the case would affect the entire ethos of free speech on the internet.

Laurence Godfrey will be paid £15,000 plus legal costs - which could top £200,000 - by Demon Internet after allegedly defamatory postings about him appeared in newsgroups.

As a result, he thinks the ISP business in Ireland is about to explode.

Go to Ireland. It's the country which seems to have done most to protect ISPs against serial litigation, and also to avoid the ridiculous restrictions on encryption and extension of investigatory powers that is set to become law in the UK. It also offers tax breaks to high-tech industries.

It's very dangerous to host some data here !

I'm managing a website about Normandy which is hosted in Mountain View for convenient reason. If one my contributors made an false assertion on the websites, publish racism sentences, the french justice could condamn me for hosting this kind of words, even if the author is known.