Web hosting provider Advanced Internet Technologies (AIT.com) has filed a lawsuit against Fayetteville Publishing Company (fayettevillenc.com and fayobserver.com) and FPC reporter Paul Woolverton, as well as several John Does.

The complaint alleged that Woolverton and others, on behalf of FPC, wrote false and defamatory statements about AIT and its employees posted via the websites aitsucks.com and aitsucks.net. In a separate litigation settlement, AIT obtained possession and all ownership rights to these websites and their respective server logs where AIT found that as many as seven different authors posted false and defamatory comments relating to AIT using a unique IP Address owned by FPC.

AIT officials say the defamatory postings were likely in response to a click fraud complaint filed with law enforcement as well as a lawsuit filed against FPC. The complaint alleged that FPC committed online click fraud against local, classified and national advertisers to inflate FPC Web traffic in order to drive up the number of impressions and clicks so it could charge advertisers more money.

Until recently, AIT placed a hold on the criminal complaint in hopes that it could reach an amicable settlement with FPC. AIT has appealed a recent decision by the court to dismiss its charges alleging it produced over 60,000 pages of evidence and days of depositions while FPC failed to produce any materials.

"The case was never tried and a jury never got to see the evidence," said Clarence Briggs, CEO of AIT. "A total of 12 invoices that they billed us with were allegedly filed a few days after the discovery deadline. This is a very disappointing decision. We will not be bullied nor intimidated into allowing this wrong to go unchallenged."

Last month, AIT filed a temporary restraining order against FPC, requesting the court to intervene and expressing concerns that the company may have spoiled or destroyed evidence on the servers despite AIT's ongoing litigation against FPC.