• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 2, 2009

A Chicago real-estate developer has backed off a request to unmask Web commenters who criticized the controversial Wilson Yard project. The developer, Holsten Real Estate, also promised to refrain from attempting to subpoena the names of online critics of the project without first seeking the court's approval.

With its retreat, Holsten ended a 10-month-old effort to force Google to reveal the names of local residents who vented about the Wilson Yard project on Google-hosted blogs like "Uptown Update" and the now-defunct "What the Helen" (which discussed the 2007 campaign of Chicago Alderman Helen Shiller).

The developer first sought to subpoena their names and identifying information after a group of opponents sued to block the project. Holsten's lawyer, Tom Johnson, argued that the company was trying to learn whether any of the commenters had joined in the lawsuit.

But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the commenters, argued that the subpoenas were "improper threats to out anonymous critics of their development project."

The EFF also argued that the commenters' identities were irrelevant because the opponents' lawsuit was likely to be thrown out of court. In May, Judge Mary Rochford of the Cook County Circuit Court dismissed the residents' lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs knew about the development since 2001, but didn't bring suit until 2008. The opponents filed amended papers in July, but observers expect those to be dismissed as well.