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According to a report in Sunday's Observer newspaper, the unions objected to allegations of child abuse and other forms of misconduct being made against teachers and former teachers on the site. This morning the site was offline for a while and when it reappeared the message board feature had been removed.

The site's founder, Julie Pankhurst, said in a statement that, 'We've taken on board concerns raised and intend to work with the relevant people to nip this in the bud. Teachers are a major part of school memories and almost all the comments on our site about teachers are very positive.' However, Friends Reunited says that although more than half a million messages had been posted only 12 complaints have been received.

Nonetheless, precedent set in a case involving Demon Internet means that any provider of an Internet messaging service is responsible for removing - once notified - any libellous messages posted on the service. Demon was forced to pay considerable damages to a university professor after delaying taking down a message later deemed as libel.