The American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”), which was involved in constructing arguments put forward in the case, details the process as follows:
"...the court should require the plaintiff to attempt to notify the anonymous posters that their identities are being sought, and give the defendants an opportunity to oppose the request. The plaintiff must identify the exact statements alleged to be unlawful.
"The court must then decide both whether the complaint states a valid claim for relief, and whether the plaintiff has enough evidence to support its claim."
If these three requirements are met, then the court concluded that the ultimate decision as to whether the identity of the user should be revealed depends upon striking a balance between anonymous free speech rights and the strength of the arguments supporting the demand for disclosure.
In the particular case before the court, the pharmaceutical software and services supplier Dendrite International failed to convince the court that it had fulfilled these requirements. The court ruled that the company had not adequately shown that allegedly false statements posted on a Yahoo! message board by anonymous critics had caused the company harm.
In the UK, data protection regulations limit the circumstances in which ISPs may be forced to disclose the identity of their users. For more information on these regulations see our guide on data protection .