The creator of the long running Whirlpool.net.au forum is being sued by 2Clix, a Queensland based business management and accounting software company, for damages relating to alleged "injurious falsehood" that occurred in several Whirlpool forums.
Established in 1998 by Simon Wright, Whirlpool is devoted to keeping the public abreast of all broadband related news and information as well as general IT topics.
2Clix is claiming that between September 2006 and July 2007, Wright allowed statements relating to 2Clix and its software products that were "false and malicious" to be published in two forum threads.
The claim goes on to say that between January and July this year, 2Clix communicated to Wright that the statements made by registered users in the threads were "causing financial harm to its trade and business".
2Clix says it lost $150,000 in revenue per month from January to July this year, and that Wright refused to remove the threads in question.
The vendor is seeking $150,000 in damages, as well as removal of the alleged offending threads.
Whirlpool staff writers said in a statement that they "believe the action has no merit and will defend the matter vigorously, despite being a community Web site with little resources."
The offending threads '2Clix or not 2Clix' and 'Anyone used 2Clix?' are closed but still available for public viewing, each includes no more than 122 individual postings.
A new thread, '2Clix sues Whirlpool founder', has already racked up over a thousand postings since it was created by the Whirlpool legal team on Tuesday night.
Both 2Clix and Whirlpool failed to respond to requests for comment.