Eight months after I notified Jardine of the page, and had discussed its content with him via e-mail (which I still have archived) a person claiming to be a representative of Adventure Lore Press (Jardine's Publishing Company) sent the following e-mail to GORP:
We would like to direct your attention to a web page hosted by your service which is publishing defamatory material. This libel is actionable per se. It is harming the reputation of the author of one of our books, by exposing him to scorn, ridicule and contempt.
This is illegal, and we might point out that the agency which hosts defamatory material (yourselves) is just as liable as if that agency had originated it. However, we are not seeking damages at this point. No doubt you were unaware of the problem, and we sense that these people are otherwise well intentioned. But the fact remains that in discouraging our customers they are likely interfering with the normal course of our business.
Lawyers were consulted, and it was decided that the review of the book was not liblelous because
My first inclenation was just to delete all mention of The PCT Hikers Handbook from the PCTA site, it was just advertising the book and helping Adventure Lore. Most of the comments elsewhere in the site were very favorable - too favorable in the opinion of many folks who contacted me about it - that's why I wrote the page in the first place. I decided this would have been a disservice to those hikers using the site as a planning reference.
I could have removed the offending file from the site and leave the good comments in, but then some inexperience hiker might get himself in trouble by following the Handbook's advice. One person even suggested that the PCTA could get sued by such a hiker for reccomending the book.
I decided that the information must stay, but that I didn't want to drag the PCTA or GORP into the frey. For that reason, I moved this review to my personal site.