This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records.
A U.S. federal court is allowing K-pop group NewJeans to subpoena information from Google about a YouTube account so they can sue the user for defamation under South Korean law.
NewJeans filed an ex parte application in late March in the Northern District of California, where Google is headquartered, for an “order authorizing limited discovery” of the user’s data from the company “for use in a criminal matter in Korea,” the order granting the application states. The group alleges that the account, which according to court documents posts under the handle @Middle7, has posted as many as 33 defamatory videos that had been viewed nearly 14 million times as of their filing. Because the account is anonymous, however, the lawsuit cannot continue until the user has been identified.