2011/04/01

Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc.

Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc.

Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc.
US-CourtOfAppeals-9thCircuit-Seal.svg
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Date decided June 22, 2009
Citations 570 F. 3d 1096
Judge sitting Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain
Case holding
The Ninth Circuit dismissed Barnes' complaints, holding that Yahoo!, Inc. was immune from liability pursuant to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This decision ultimately reversed the decision from the lower court in Oregon by granting Yahoo! the motion to dismiss.
Keywords
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 570 F. 3d 1096 (D. Or. Nov. 8, 2005), is a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case in which the Court held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) rules that Yahoo!, Inc., as an Internet service provider is immune from removing harmful content from their website. Plaintiff Cecilia Barnes made claims arising out of Defendant Yahoo!, Inc.'s alleged failure to honor promises to remove offensive content about the plaintiff posted by a third party. The content consisted of a personal profile with nude photos of the Plaintiff and her contact information. The United States District Court for the District of Oregon had dismissed Barnes' complaint.

Facts and Procedural History

In 2004, Cecilia Barnes ended a relationship with her boyfriend. Following the breakup, her now ex-boyfriend tried to harass her by creating multiple unauthorized Yahoo! profiles about her that included solicitation to engage in sexual intercourse. These profiles seemed like they came from Barnes herself and contained nude photographs of her that were taken without her knowledge as well as her real contact information. The ex-boyfriend also pretended to be Barnes in several Yahoo! chat rooms, in which he directed men to the profiles that he created of Barnes. As a result of her ex-boyfriend's actions, Barnes started getting phone calls, emails, and even office visits from various men who expected to have sex with her.

Following Yahoo!'s policy, Barnes then emailed Yahoo! to have her profiles taken down. She sent them a copy of her photo ID and a signed statement explaining that she did not create those profiles and requesting that they be removed. However, she received no response and even after one month of her request, unknown men still continued to contact her. Barnes then made another request to Yahoo! by mail to take down the profiles. Still receiving no response by the next month, she tried asking them two more times, but was not successful. Eventually, just before a local news program decided to air a report on her story, Yahoo! finally responded. Barnes received a call from the Director of Communications, who gave her directions to fax over the information she sent and told Barnes that she would "personally walk the statements over to the division responsible for stopping unauthorized profiles and they would take care of it." Barnes claims that she trusted her, so she stopped worrying about the issue.

Two months after that, the profiles still remained online and Barnes had not heard anything back from Yahoo! ever since the Director of Communications told her that the issue would be resolved. In response, Barnes decided to file a lawsuit against Yahoo! in the district court in Oregon. It was not until she sued Yahoo! that the profiles were removed from the website.

Trial Court Proceedings

Defendant's Claims

Yahoo!, Inc. relies exclusively on the first part of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which bars courts from treating certain internet service providers as publishers or speakers. Yahoo!, Inc. asserts that it was immune from the suit under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which "immunizes interactive service providers such as Yahoo! from liability for harm caused by the dissemination of third-party information."

“Section 230(c) of the CDA: Protection for "good samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker — No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

”

Plaintiff's Claims

Barnes tries to make a claim that she is not holding Yahoo! liable as a publisher for the third-party content posted by her ex-boyfriend. She argues that her claim does not fall under Section 230, but rather, it falls under Section 323 of an Oregon torts claim.

“Section 323 of Oregon Torts Claim

One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other's person or things, is subject to liability to the other for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking...

”

Plaintiff alleges that when Yahoo! contacted her, she relied on its affirmative duty to remove the profiles and prohibit them from being posted again like the defendant promised. However, since Yahoo! failed to do this, Barnes alleges that the defendant did not "exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking" and that she was harmed by the third-party content. She also claims that Yahoo! violated an Oregon tort law that derives from section 323 of the Restatement of Torts, Second to remove the profiles on their website.

Opinion of the Court

Plaintiff's claims fall under Section 230 of the CDA which grants broad immunity from liability to Internet service providers, which Yahoo! indisputedly is. Barnes alleges that she was harmed by the material posted about her and said that Yahoo! violated an Oregon tort law to take down the profiles upon her request. According to the Court, "Any such claim by plaintiff necessarily treats the service provider as 'publisher' of the content is therefore barred by Sec. 230."

The court also states that Barnes' argument that Yahoo! did not keep its promise of removing the defamatory content online does not dismiss the immunity provided to internet service providers by Section 230 of the CDA.

Holding

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling that an Internet service provider is immune from removing indecent content from their website on the basis of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Ninth Circuit ultimately reversed the decision from the lower court in Oregon by granting Yahoo! the motion to dismiss.

References

External links






Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_v._Yahoo!,_Inc.
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