Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick

The High Court of Australia considered an application for special leave to appeal in the matter of *Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick*. The dispute concerned allegations of defamation brought by Mr Rod Gutnick, an Australian resident, against Dow Jones & Co Inc, a US-based company, in relation to an article published on its website. The article, accessible globally, was alleged to have been downloaded and read by users in Victoria, Australia.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the tort of defamation could be committed in Victoria, Australia, when the defamatory material was published on a website hosted in the United States but accessed by a reader in Victoria. This raised questions about the geographical location of publication for online content and the applicable jurisdictional rules for defamation claims in the context of the internet.

The Court, in granting special leave to appeal, indicated that the traditional approach to determining the place of publication, which focused on where the defamatory material was first made available to a third party, might require re-evaluation in the digital age. The reasoning suggested that the tort of defamation is committed where the material is downloaded and read, thereby causing reputational harm to the plaintiff. This approach would allow an Australian court to have jurisdiction if the defamatory material was accessed and read within its territory, regardless of where the publisher was located.