Third Circuit upholds Communications Decency Act immunity for Google, Yahoo and others

Plaintiff filed suit against Google, Yahoo and some unknown (John Doe) defendants for defamation, tortious interference with contract, and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress based on various online postings. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. ยง230) provided immunity to defendants over the third party content giving rise to the complaint. Section 230 provides, in relevant part, that “[n]o 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.” Because defendants were not the creators of the information, and the claims attempted to treat them as the publisher or speaker of that content, Section 230 barred the claims.

Kabbaj v. Google, Inc., 2015 WL 534864 (3rd Cir. Feb. 10, 2015)

About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases. Read Evan’s other blog, UDRP Tracker, for information about domain name disputes.

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