Awhile back I removed all the pseudonymous sites from my blogroll, out of fear that I might have legal exposure if one of those sites made a defamatory statement or criminal threat against a third party. As it turns out, that fear was unfounded, although I kept the general policy of not linking to anonymous sites. I made an exception for Eschaton, the wildly popular website of the blogger known as "Atrios". I figured that since I went to his site several times a day anyways, and people whose judgment I trusted, such as James Capozzola, vouched for him, I might as well.

In any event, the issue in the blogosphere the last couple of days (mentioned here on Wednesday) is the threatening letter sent from an attorney for another blogger, Donald Luskin, accusing "Atrios" (whose real name is "Donovan McNabb") of libeling him by calling him a "stalker" of esteemed columnist Paul Krugman, and of tolerating the presence of third-party commenters, who supposedly said even crueler things. Obviously, a successful lawsuit would irreparably damage the internet, and the fact that Luskin has jokingly admitted to being a stalker of Prof. Krugman in the past makes this an example of everything people hate about the legal system. For those of you who are interested, though, TalkLeft has a legal analysis of blogger liability for third-party comments with which I concur.