Legal Value of the Web Content

Andrea, the rules of admissibility are going to vary by jurisdiction, and I don't know anything about Italian law. That being said, here are some links that may help you understand the issues and approaches to authentication that may be applicable in Italy (or wherever the case is being tried).

http//www.lexisnexis.com/applieddiscovery/LawLibrary/whitePapers/ADI_WP_LorraineVMarkel.pdf

http//www.depo.com/E-letters/TheDiscoveryUpdate/2008/October/Articles/website_authentication.html

http//www.stevenslee.com/news/ediscovrywoutadmissuseless_jdb_proof.pdf

This article deals specifically with archive.org, the "Wayback Machine"
http//ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4467&context=flr

Thank you very much for the information related on
admissibility and authentication of electronic evidences the papers you sent me are really interesting.

Going in depth in the case in which I'm involved, I have to prove that a web-url (e.g. www.<company-name>.it) have been previously associated to
a firm.

I performed a whois query in the site www.nic.it, the Italian ccTLD, finding the web site in
the status "pendingDelete / redemptionPeriod" that means the record should be deleted when the redemptionPeriod
will expire.

I need to produce the evidence above before the expiration time. My idea is to have a witness from counterpart that testify the whois query result
and store the web search output in a pdf format.
Do you think that this procedure would make this information admissible in a court?

Best Regards,

Andrea Liguoro

I need to produce the evidence above before the expiration time. My idea is to have a witness from counterpart that testify the whois query result
and store the web search output in a pdf format.
Do you think that this procedure would make this information admissible in a court?

Personally (and being particularly old fashioned) I would ADDITIONALLY film the whole procedure (from the boot of the PC to when you open the browser, input the address, get the info and print it, then sign the physical piece of paper dating it).
And produce the piece of paper.

A .pdf file is not a particularly "tamper-proof" format, the only value is the testimony (and the movie might be a useful "corollary").

By the way, the good guys at nic.it do exist "physically" )
Registro del ccTLD .it
Istituto di Informatica e Telematica – CNR
Via G. Moruzzi, 1
56124 Pisa (PI)
you can write them, fax them at +39 050 315 3448 and even call them on the phone
http//www.iit.cnr.it/contatti
they may be able/willing to produce a signed statement.

Also the registration is normally done through a third party Contatti Tecnici/Registrar (which normally is the hosting company).
If this is the case (depending of course on a case by case basis and the specific powers you have and a lot of other variables) you should be able to find a fiscal trace (annotation in accounting) in favour of the registrar and the corresponding invoice which - again usually - will state the fee for the registering (or the renewal) of the site/domain.

jaclaz