JOSEPH GUTNICK IS A WEALTHY, MELBOURNE-BASED BUSINESSMAN. HE IS an orthodox rabbi who made millions as a mining mogul while also developing a reputation in philanthropic circles. But what may earn his place in the history books goes beyond his business acumen or his charitable reputation, while being intimately related to both.

It began when Gutnick was given a starring role in an investigative article in Barron's Digest. Barron's is a weekly financial magazine published in the United States by Dow Jones, the corporate parent of the Wall Street Journal. The now infamous 7000-word piece – Unholy Gains by William Alpert – ran with the sub-heading: ‘When stock promoters cross paths with religious charities, investors had better be on guard’. From Gutnick's point of view, it all went downhill from there. This appeared in print and on the Barron's Online web site, hosted on a server that distributes web pages from a corporate office in New Jersey. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, Gutnick read the article on the web site and discovered that his generosity to charities had been impugned as a cover for suspect dealings. He was not amused.

I'm not really concerned with the claims about Gutnick's affairs or whether they are defamatory. What's of keen interest to me, and, for different reasons, thousands of media publishers around the world, is how cases such as these could be used as instruments to limit what you can publish on the Internet.