A citizen of Ohio wins a court battle to keep his site up

A citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio who established a web site critical of the Hamilton County Republican Party, www.hamiltoncountyrepublicanparty.com, was sued by the Republican Party to force the owner to take the site down. The Republican Party claimed that the gripe site's domain name is similar to the actual Republican Party's web site.

In his brief, Michael Dalton argued that the party’s motion for a temporary restraining order should be denied because such an order would constitute a prior restraint on political speech that would violate core First Amendment principles, and because trademark law pertains only to commercial speech made to promote a business. In a hearing today in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, Judge Ralph E. Winkler denied the party’s motion to immediately order Dalton to refrain from using his Web site.

Good to hear that another gripe site gets to stay online.