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DELFI AS v. ESTONIA JUDGMENT
(2) The provisions of paragraph 1 of this section do not restrict the right of an
official exercising supervision to request the disclosure of such information by a
service provider.
(3) Service providers are required to promptly inform the competent supervisory
authorities of alleged illegal activities undertaken or information provided by
recipients of their services specified in sections 8 to 10 of this Act, and to
communicate to the competent authorities information enabling the identification of
recipients of their service with whom they have storage agreements.”
38. In a judgment of 21 December 2005 (case no. 3-2-1-95-05) the
Supreme Court found that, for the purposes of section 1047 of the
Obligations Act, disclosure [avaldamine] meant disclosure of information to
third parties. A person who transmitted information to a media publisher
[meediaväljaanne] could be considered a discloser [avaldaja] even if he or
she was not the publisher of the article [ajaleheartikli avaldaja] in question.
The Supreme Court has reiterated the same position in its subsequent
judgments, for example in a judgment of 21 December 2010 (case
no. 3-2-1-67-10).
39. In a number of domestic cases actions for defamation have been
brought against several defendants, including, for example, a publisher of a
newspaper and the author of an article (the Supreme Court’s judgment of
7 May 1998 in case no. 3-2-1-61-98), a publisher of a newspaper and an
interviewee (the Supreme Court’s judgment of 1 December 1997 in case
no. 3-2-1-99-97), and solely against a publisher of a newspaper (the
Supreme Court’s judgment of 30 October 1997 in case no. 3-2-1-123-97,
and a judgment of 10 October 2007 in case no. 3-2-1-53-07).
III. RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL
A. Council of Europe documents
40. On 28 May 2003 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of
Europe adopted, at the 840th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies, the
Declaration on freedom of communication on the Internet. It reads in the
relevant part as follows:
“The member states of the Council of Europe ...Convinced also that it is necessary
to limit the liability of service providers when they act as mere transmitters, or when
they, in good faith, provide access to, or host, content from third parties;
Recalling in this respect Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in
particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic
commerce);