High Court of Australia

A novel development: The fundamental premise of the appellant's arguments concerning the reformulation of the applicable rules of defamation depended on the technological features of the Internet. According to the appellant, those features were sufficiently different from pre-existing technology to demand a substantial reconsideration of the relevant law that had been stated in a different context in earlier times. If a more general revision were thought inappropriate or unnecessary, the task should at least be undertaken for any allegedly defamatory imputations published on the Internet.