The recent settlement of the libel action brought by the baby- and child-care author Gina Ford against Mumsnet, the parenting website, leaves some tricky questions unanswered - not least whether a website is a “publisher” for the purposes of the law of libel.

Gina Ford is a highly successful author and has published a series of very popular books on baby- and child-care throughout the world. Her methods and advice attract intense support and opposition, probably in equal measure. Mumsnet Ltd runs a parenting website, which hosts a chatroom through which its members post messages on virtually any topic they like. It has tens of thousands of members, who reportedly post around 15,000 messages each day.

The dispute began about 15 months ago, when some of the bulletins shifted from discussing (and criticising) Gina Ford’s methods and advice to making personal attacks on her character. Pretty soon, it seemed clear to me that she was being libelled on a regular basis.

Initially, the website denied any responsibility for the actions of its members. It was only after 12 months of argument, discussion, negotiation and the issue of a writ, that Mumsnet settled the dispute by apologising publicly to Gina Ford and making a contribution to her legal costs.

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Blogs and message boards are flourishing, and every online publisher wants them. To a media lawyer, it smells like a herd of libel actions fast approaching

Niri Shan

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What were the issues? They boiled down to these questions: is the proprietor of a website legally responsible for defamatory material on its webpages, even if that material is written by a third party in a web chatroom? Or do those who run websites have special treatment under the law, so that they do not have the same responsibilities as traditional publishers?

The answer seemed clear: section one of the Defamation Act 1996 provides a website proprietor, like every other publisher, with a defence to a libel claim if it can satisfy all of these tests:

* the website was not the ‘publisher’, as defined in S.1;

* reasonable care was taken in respect of the publication;

* the website did not know, and had no reason to believe, that it was causing or contributing to the publication of defamatory material.

How could Mumsnet avoid being held to be the publisher - which in turn would mean that on ordinary principles it would be liable for defamatory material written by its members - unless it could protect itself by relying on the well known defences of justification or fair comment?

The settlement means that we will never know the answer. The principal shareholder of Mumsnet said in The Times last Thursday that "it’s not clear how far a site is protected even if they take down controversial material”. And one of Mumsnet’s solicitors said elsewhere that section 1 of the 1996 Act does not provide “very clear guidance in an age when providers host chatrooms are awash with heated debate”, particularly given “the sheer volume of comments and the logistical problems of the notice and take down practice”.

You can argue that our libel laws should recognise that the internet has changed everything, and what was good enough in times gone by is not appropriate for the digital age. Perhaps the time has indeed arrived for the legal position of all publishers to be reviewed.

But I disagree profoundly with the proposition that the law should treat websites and ISPs preferentially compared with conventional publishers. There seems to be no reason in principle why that should be so.

And to rely on the volume of posts, and the logistical problems they create, to justify giving websites and ISPs a special status under the law, seems to me to be fundamentally wrong and unjust.

Far from liberating publishers, authors and citizen journalists, tinkering with the law to grant special rights to some publishers and not others, will simply impose an unfair commercial burden on the latter, and effectively undermine freedom of expression rather than enhance it.

The author, a media specialist at the law firm Foot Anstey, represented Gina Ford, the baby-care specialist, in her libel claim against Mumsnet

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