The UK High Court has allowed an injunction to be served on an anonymous person posting messages (tweeting) on the Twitter service. This follows a recent Australian case in which the court allowed the service of an injunction via Facebook after all other means of service had been refused by the defendants.

The anonymous blogger had been accused of impersonating Donal Blaney, a solicitor at Kent firm Griffin Law and a Conservative blogger. The anonymous blogger had been posting threads on Twitter under the name Blaneysblarney, while Donal Blaney runs a blog called Blaney's Blarney and posts to Twitter under the name Donal_Blaney.

The names and posts were sufficiently similar that friends and colleagues of Donal Blaney were following the anonymous blogger's posts, the contents of which were considered somewhat objectionable.

The court agreed with Blaney's argument that the postings (tweets) were an unauthorised use of his name breached his copyright and intellectual property rights. Blaney sought to serve the injunction through the Twitter service, rather than seeking to have the Twitter fitter (based in California) deal with the matter, a potentially lengthy process.

UK law provides that an injunction does not have to be served in person and can be delivered by several means, including fax or e-mail.

The injunction order -- known as the Blaney's Blarney Order -- was duly served. While the details are covered by confidentiality, the blogger has agreed to pay damages to Help for Heroes, the charity set up in 2007 to help British soldiers injured in wars since 9/11.