The article says they can sue the forum owner. It says they might have trouble getting the forum owner to turn over the names because of First Amendment issues.
From what I could see the individual claims that because of posts on a political forum he lost a construction contract. That would qualify him for monetary damages but he'd still have to prove that he lost the contract due to the internet posts and he'd still have to prove that what was posted was false. Right to free speech is not the same thing as right to libel. The problem for the people who posted the information was that their posts were repeated or quoted in a more public setting, resulting in (allegedly) loss of a contract. His lawsuit goes after people who post under screen names too:
"the complaint also names John and Jane Does 1 through 50 as co-defendants. Those are individuals whose true names are not known to Dollinger, who he claims passed on or repeated false or damaging information"
You know, there's a rumor that Brad Friedman was asking questions about his right to sue because someone posted libel on a message board claiming that Brad is being investigated for murder. The Black Box Voting organization seems to be taking things a step further. I tried to get an interview yesterday, couldn't get much time, but from what I could get their lawyer recently hit someone with a libel suit on an internet matter. I guess there have to be limits.
I've been playing around with the idea of doing a short subject film on the shadowy world of how corporations use the internet. Little side trails lead hither and yon, hard to keep track of it all.