Boothe v. Brent Hanson

Brent Hanson, who operated a website focused on laser eye surgery called LasikFraud.com, posted allegedly defamatory material about Dr. Boothe, a refractive surgeon, essentially calling Dr. Boothe a quack and accusing him of botching surgeries. After Dr. Boothe sued Hanson, the parties settled the suit on January 31, 2005, with Hanson agreeing to a permanent injunction that required him to remove the offending allegations from his website and to delete all his digital content relating to Dr. Boothe, and restraining him from repeating the allegations elsewhere.

After the suit was over, Hanson apparently violated the injunction against him by posting more information about Dr. Boothe on different websites ("LasikQuack.com" and "LasikQuack.org"). Counsel for Boothe hired a computer forensics expert, who testified that Hanson controlled these websites, and attempted to conceal this fact by using eGold cards and offshore web hosting. The Texas court found that Hanson had breached the terms of the permanent injunction and was guilty of contempt. Hanson was fined $1,500 and sentenced to serve 540 days of jail time.

The jail term was suspended for 18 months on the condition that Hanson: comply with the permanent injunction; allow Boothe's representatives to enter his home and inspect his computers to check up on his compliance; refrain from erasing material from his computers (other than in the ordinary course of business); and withdraw any complaints against Boothe with government agencies (unless a court orders that he has a reasonable chance of success).

The court also ordered that all Internet service providers, domain name registrars,
web site administrations, search engines, UseNet Groups, computer message boards, webhosting companies, e-mail service providers, electronic currency companies, and other providers of electronic communications services or remote computing services and expressly including Google, Inc., DSLReports.com, BroadbandReports.com, and Yahoo!, and their respective corporate affiliates, to remove all links to LasikQuack.com, LasikQuack.net, and LasikQuack.org, as well as all text associated with those links, including any cached copies.