SEO Book’s Aaron Wall was sued today by Traffic-Power.com for alleged inaccuracies and lies appearing in comments other people have left on his blog. If this case goes to trial, it’ll set an important precedent in the blogging community and the Internet at large, answering a critical question, particularly for business blogs: are the comments others leave on your blog a legal liability?

Some background: Aaron Wall runs SEO Book.com, a site focused on search engine optimization strategies and on selling his smart ebook of the same name. In a discussion venue of that nature, it’s no surprise that community members talk about different SEO firms, positively and negatively, and one company that’s been the frequent recipient of negative comments on Aaron’s blog is Traffic Power.com.

Today Aaron was surprised by a certified letter from a Nevada Attorney’s office notifying him that the parent company of Traffic-Power.com was suing him for the content of his weblog.]

With Aaron’s permission, I reproduce some relevant sections of the notification in question:

“Plaintiff undertakes rigorous and extensive measures to safeguard information about its business. Internet placement optimization is a highly competitive business, and if Plaintiff’s trade secrets are revealed competitors can gain a prejudicially unfair advantage over Plaintiff. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s trade secrets are provided to a limited number of people, only on a need-to-know basis and subject to strict confidentiality agreements.

“An unidentified individual, acting alone or in concert with others, has recently misappropriated and disseminated through web sites Plaintiff’s confidential information. This information could have been obtained only through…