CDA 230

By now you've heard that the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reaffirmed the previous Roommates.com decision. There's lots of excellent coverage out there -- some notable examples include the Online Liability Blog, Info/Law, Internet Cases, and Eric Goldman's Law & Technology Blog. The new decision, written by Judge Kozinski, may have exploded forever the longstanding assumption (among Internet lawyers, at least) that website operators would always be immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230) for publishing and organizing content provided by their users, so long as the underlying claim didn't involve intellectual property, federal criminal law, or the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Nevertheless, we can read the case narrowly, and its impact could be inconsequential if limited to its facts. Unfortunately, aspects of the opinion make a more expansive reading possible.   read more »

In what appears to be the first case of its kind, a federal court in New Hampshire has ruled that the immunity provisions in section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230) do not bar a state law claim for a violation of a person's "right of publicity." In so holding, the court expressly disagreed with the Ninth Circuit's decision in Perfect 10 v. CCBill LLC, which held that CDA 230 exempts only federal intellectual property law claims from its protections.   read more »

The case involves the typically disturbing facts that often arise in the CDA 230 context. The plaintiff, proceeding pseudonymously, sued defendant Friendfinder Network, which operates a number of websites, including “AdultFriendFinder.com” that bills itself as “the World’s Largest SEX and SWINGER Personal Community.” To participate, users register by entering a variety of personal information, creating online profiles that can be viewed by other members of the community.

New Jersey prosecutors have subpoenaed the controversial gossip site JuicyCampus as part of an investigation into whether the site is violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Reports (here, here, and here) indicate that prosecutors believe that the website may be running afoul of the law by suggesting in its Terms & Conditions that it does not allow the posting of offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule or way for users to report objectionable content. (New Jersey authorities also subpoenaed AdBrite and Google for information about how JuicyCampus represented itself to these advertising services.) Assuming the investigation moves forward, this case is sure to be a flashpoint for further debate about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230).   read more »

A Vermont judge has dismissed the libel lawsuit filed against Chris Grotke and Lise LePage, co-founders and owners of iBrattleboro.com, a widely acclaimed community journalism site based in Brattleboro, Vermont, ruling that Grotke and LePage are immune from liability under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230").

The lawsuit, which was filed by Effie Mayhew on November 16, 2007, alleges that David Dunn, the former executive director of Rescue Inc., an emergency medical services organization where Mayhew works as a volunteer, libeled her in a comment on the site. While Mayhew's complaint didn't make any allegations that Grotke or LePage authored the allegedly defamatory statements, her lawyer (as well as several commentators in Vermont) asserted that iBrattleboro.com should be liable because the site admins failed to edit or remove Dunn's comment.   read more »

Breaking news from Above the Law: Anthony Ciolli, former defendant in the controversial AutoAdmit case, has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court against the two plaintiffs in that case, their lawyers, ReputationDefender and one of its employees, and the shadowy "T14 Talent." He alleges wrongful initiation of civil proceedings, abuse of process, libel, slander, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contract, and unauthorized use of name or likeness. It looks like Ciolli has outed one of the pseudonymous defendants in the AutoAdmit case -- "pauliewalnuts."

Here's the complaint -- we're still digesting it.

Update:  I didn't mean to be snarky about this lawsuit. Assuming that his allegations are true, I have a lot of sympathy for Ciolli, and he appears to have some actionable claims. Marc Randazza, his attorney in the AutoAdmit case, has a thoughtful post on the new lawsuit.

No, this isn't about the Megan Meier suicide debacle. It's about another, older but equally tragic episode. The family of a fifteen-year-old girl who committed suicide in 2006 after a sexual relationship with a twenty-seven-year-old man she met on MySpace is suing the popular social networking site for negligence and violation of products liability law (i.e., for creating and distributing a defective product). The crux of the complaint is that MySpace negligently "provided an unprotected social networking site absent of any legitimate means of preventing contact bretween sexual predators and minors." Compl. ¶ 1. The family filed suit against MySpace in state court in Texas in December 2007, also naming as a defendant Kiley Ryan Bowers, the man who allegedly had a relationship with the deceased. Wired has a good article with more details.   read more »