A Pittsburgh judge has dismissed an attorney's defamation suit against the Florida operator of DontDateHimGirl.com, finding that the Web site's level of interaction with computer users was insufficient to establish jurisdiction.

“DontDateHimGirl.com is a minimally interactive website,” Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick said in a decision that did not address the merits of attorney Todd Hollis's claims that derogatory postings about him on the dating gossip site were libelous.

Hollis sued DDGH operator Tasha Joseph in June 2006 after users accused him of having herpes, speculated he was gay or bisexual and described his home as “a dump.” The site allows women to submit profiles of men who allegedly cheated on them.

While Joseph is a resident of Florida and the DDGH server is also located there, Hollis claimed she has “continuous and systematic contacts” with Pennsylvania and her site “sells significant advertising” to residents of that state.

In a motion to dismiss, the defense invoked a federal law that protects Internet service providers from being sued for defamation over content posted by third parties. Courts have applied the Communications Decency Act to such Web sites as MySpace, but the jurisdictional issue was all Wettick needed to grant the motion.

Jurisdiction in Internet cases can be tricky since Web sites can be accessed from just about anywhere. Hollis cited Mar-Eco, Inc. v. T&R and Sons Towing and Recovery, 837 A.2d 512 (2003), which held that a Maryland auto dealer could be sued in Pennsylvania because of its site.

According to Wettick, however, that site “permitted the defendant to perform a significant amount of business over the Internet,” and DDHG was more like the site in Efford v. Jockey Club, 796 A.2d 370 (2002), that an appeals court found to be “general advertising with the 'added convenience of an online registry.'”

The DDHG online store, Wettick noted, has sold only $200 worth of merchandise to six Pennsylvania residents, accounting for less than five percent of total sales.

The site also carries Google click-through ads, but the judge said Google has “no way of knowing the amount of money that it has paid [Joseph] on profiles of people that are identified with Pennsylvania.”