From Light Reading:

Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR - message board) is taking a handful of Light Reading message board users to court, according to recent court filings.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company filed a lawsuit in the California Superior Court of Santa Clara on December 14 claiming that it had been defamed and libeled by up to 10 persons unknown. These persons, referred to as “Does 1-10″ in the court complaint (as in “John Doe,” or anonymous), are being accused by Juniper of posting harmful statements about the company and its executives on Light Reading’s message boards.

Ironic, I just said in the podcast that this type of thing will happen and there are ways to handle it. Suing isn’t the best way. Just as an example, I would have never read those posts. The posts they are mentioning is a drop in the bucket to the millions of people using the internet. The average person, even their average customer, would not have seen those messages.

Are the allegations serious? Yes. Will suing make these allegations more known? Most definitely. Will it help their reputation? Most likely not. It would have been wiser to address the situation. Ask for the posts to be removed. Respond to the posts. Respond on a blog. Suing should have been a last resort.

These comments they are trying to surpress are not all over the internet. So let’s say they win the case, the comments are still out there except being in one spot they are now in thousands of different places.

Now what?