Yelp, which is challenging an order from a California state court to remove an individual's online "defamatory" review against a lawyer, is getting support from major civil society, industry and technology organizations including CTA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook, Google and the Internet Association, arguing online free speech is threatened. The briefs also back Yelp's arguments to the California Supreme Court, which is hearing the challenge in Hassell v. Bird, that the lower court's order violates the company's due process rights and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which protects online platforms from being held liable for content posted on their sites.
President Donald Trump's repeated accusations that news organizations like CNN and The New York Times are producing "fake news" may threaten efforts by Facebook, social media platforms and others fighting hoaxes and misinformation, further undermining authority of well-sourced, accurate stories, said tech and media experts in recent interviews. It's difficult to say how the president's accusations could affect Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and other social media sites, where 62% of U.S. adults get at least some of their news, said a Pew Research Center poll last year. But experts agree less well-sourced stories or those that the president may favor over more mainstream reporting could become more widely disseminated through these sites, confusing readers about what is accurate. “Social media tends to create a false validity simply through republication," said Fletcher Heald attorney Kevin Goldberg, counsel to the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN).
Backpage.com executives including CEO Carl Ferrer invoked their constitutional rights and refused to answer questions at a Tuesday hearing held by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), which has been probing the online classified advertiser for 20 months as part of a larger inquiry into underage sex trafficking on the internet. The panel, which concluded its inquiry into the matter, released a scathing 53-page report that implicated the company, saying it knowingly facilitated prostitution and child sex trafficking and edited content to conceal evidence. PSI Chairman Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said the subcommittee will consider legislative remedies and refer the matter to DOJ and state attorneys general.
Airbnb dropped a lawsuit against New York City and state over a state law that could hold the online property rental company liable for users who place advertisements for short-term rentals. The home-sharing company said it settled a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that invoked Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 1611080029). Airbnb sees the settlement “as a material step forward for our hosts,” a company spokesman emailed Monday. “We look forward to using this as a basis to finding an approach that protects responsible New Yorkers while cracking down on illegal hotels that remove permanent housing off the market or create unsafe spaces.” In the agreement, Airbnb and the city agreed to work together on ways to address New York’s housing shortage, including through host compliance with Airbnb's One Host, One Home policy, the spokesman said. The Airbnb policy limits hosts to make their homes available for only short-term rentals. The New York governor and New York City mayor’s offices didn’t comment.
How a court will view Airbnb's argument that the Communications Decency Act protects it from a New York law that could hold the online property rental company liable for users who place ads for short-term rentals is difficult to foresee and might have significant consequences for the sharing economy industry, some experts said in interviews this week. Two weeks ago, the home-sharing company filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the state and New York City invoking Section 230 of the 20-year-old CDA. That law was designed to shield website operators from lawsuits arising out of third-party content so it would allow freedom of expression and innovation to flourish on the internet.
LeadClick, a now-defunct affiliate marketing network, is liable for deceptive advertising content it had no hand in producing and that was promoted on fake news websites, said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding a lower court ruling that sided with the FTC and Connecticut. But Judge Denny Chin, who wrote Friday's 3-0 opinion (in Pacer), reversed, in part, the summary judgment by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in New Haven, which said then-parent CoreLogic should be liable as a relief defendant. The FTC and Connecticut sued LeanSpa in December 2011 for selling purported weight-loss products. That case was settled in January 2014. But the District Court ruled LeadClick and CoreLogic should turn over $11.9 million gained through their arrangement with LeanSpa. Consumers were lured to LeanSpa's website through fake news websites developed by LeadClick's affiliates, wrote Chin. LeadClick said a defendant can be held liable for deceptive acts or practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act only if it created the deceptive content. But Chin, citing cases in the 9th and 11th Circuits, said a defendant can be held liable "if, with knowledge of the deception, it either directly participates in a deceptive scheme or has the authority to control the deceptive content at issue." He also rejected LeadClick's argument the FTC Act doesn't "expressly provide" for aiding and abetting liability. Chin said LeadClick also isn't entitled to immunity, as the company had sought, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is designed to protect children from sexually explicit content. But he said the lower court erred in saying CoreLogic must disgorge $4.1 million it got from LeadClick, which closed shop in 2011, because CoreLogic had a "legitimate claim to repayment from its prior advances to LeadClick." CoreLogic declined to comment Monday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Yelp Monday, affirming a U.S. District Court in Seattle’s 2014 rejection of Washington state locksmith business owner Douglas Kimzey’s lawsuit against the user-generated review website. Kimzey sued Yelp pro se over a 2011 negative review of his Redmond Locksmith business. A three-judge 9th Circuit panel affirmed District Judge Richard Jones’ rejection of Kimzey’s claim that Yelp is liable under Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230.
It's early to definitively say how either presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton or presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would handle copyright issues as president. An early reading points to neither deviating from the status quo, copyright lobbyists told us. Clinton's tech policy agenda, released Tuesday (see 1606280071), mentions copyright policy. Trump's campaign pointed us to its existing policy statements, which reference intellectual property policy only in the context of U.S. trade relations with China.
Backpage.com scored a victory last week when a federal court dismissed the case brought by three women in Massachusetts, saying that the online classified advertiser wasn't responsible for their appearance in prostitution advertisements posted by third parties. It faces a similar challenge in Washington state, and the company's troubles with Congress grew when the Senate unanimously held the company and its CEO in contempt for ignoring subpoenas to appear before an investigations subcommittee (see 1603170042). Some experts said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is doing what CDA was designed to do: protect website operators from lawsuits arising out of third-party content.
Net neutrality sparked familiar divisions but also some projections and legal analysis from attorneys on a Digital Policy Institute webinar Wednesday. While the FCC’s order faces many court challenges, Andrew Schwartzman, Georgetown Institute for Public Representation senior counselor, said he believes judges will likely focus on the commission’s authority to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecom service under the Communications Act and accord the agency’s view deference. But Brent Skorup, a George Mason University telecom research fellow, and Stuart Brotman, a University of Tennessee electronic media professor, questioned FCC deference in this case. Skorup suggested the commission was vulnerable on First Amendment grounds, but Schwartzman was skeptical. The three speakers did agree Congress is unlikely to pass a legislative compromise for now.