"A senior judge has ordered Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, to disclose the identity of one of its contributors after a mother and her young child pleaded for help in identifying an alleged blackmailer.

In the first case of its kind, Mr Justice Tugendhat ordered Wikipedia’s parent company, Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation Inc, to disclose the computer identity, known as an IP address, of one of its registered users.

The judge acted after hearing that the mother, who is well known in the business world, had received anonymous letters threatening to disclose to the media details of her professional life and expenses.

The mystery Wikipedia user made an “amendment” to the mother’s entry, also referring to her young child, and disclosing confidential and “sensitive” information about them. The businesswoman believes the Wikipedia contributor and the author of the anonymous letters are the same person."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wiki...ontributor.html

Surely this can't be "the first case of its kind"?

Mr Justice Tugendhat is a British High Court justice, so this likely has no bearing whatsoever on the WMF's actions.

It's not. Not even close. The only remotely unusual aspect is that the names of all the parties are being kept confidential. The only remotely interesting thing that could come of this would be if the Foundation (which cannot be bound by any order of secrecy imposed by the British court, since that court lacks jurisdiction over the Foundation) chose to publish the order, which almost certainly include sufficient information to identify the parties to the case.