Think you've been libelled by a website? Count the readers first

People who believe they have been libelled online will have to do some detective work before making a claim, the High Court has ruled.

When an alleged libel has been committed in a printed publication such as a magazine or newspaper, the courts can usually determine how many people are likely to have read the offending words.

However this is not so easy when it concerns an online publication.

For libel to have occurred under the law, 'substantial publication' has to have occurred. This means that enough people should have read the allegedly offending words for them to have potentially made a difference to the complainant's reputation.

People are increasingly finding they are the subject of nasty innuendo, cutting remarks and bile on websites or when they post to online newsgroups, forums and message boards.

While not all of these comments will constitute libel, even if some do, a new ruling has suggested anyone trying to sue over comments made online will have to first find out how many people have accessed the page in question.

Mr Justice Gray ruled that just because something has been published on a website, it's not possible to presume that 'substantial publication' has occurred.

He was ruling on the case of Ethiopian-born businessman Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, who sued a Swiss company for libel contained in reports published on its website.

However, the company said that the reports in question were only downloaded inside the court's jurisdiction by Mr Al Amoudi's legal team, which meant that they were not seen by enough other people to make them libellous.

Because the reports were read by so few people, any damages that might be awarded would be so small that they would be vastly outweighed by the cost of the trial, so it would not have made sense to proceed with the case.

The two parties have settled the case out of court.