Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Author: Matt Kellogg

In the Northern District of California, the District Court granted Google’s motion to dismiss in a suit claiming that Google had been complicit in fraud perpetrated through its AdWords program. Because the plaintiff did not allege that Google had helped to develop the offending content, Google was immune under § 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which shields website operators from liability for hosting unlawful content created by third parties.

Author: Robert Lopez

John Doe sued SexSearch.com, an online adult dating service, alleging fourteen violations of Ohio law. Each count attempted to hold SexSearch.com liable for Doe’s illicit relationship with a minor who misrepresented her age in violation of SexSearch.com’s terms of use. The Sixth Circuit upheld the ruling of the Northern District of Ohio, but refused to adopt its reading of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). 47 U.S.C § 230(f)(2). The court stated that the district court “read § 230 more broadly that any previous Court of Appeals decision” and that such a reading could “potentially abrogat[e] all state or common-law causes of action brought against interactive Internet services.” Instead, the Sixth Circuit invalidated all fourteen claims holding that each one failed to state a valid claim under Ohio law.

In July 2008, Stubhub lost a motion to dismiss a North Carolina anti-scalping complaint regarding tickets for a Hannah Montana concert purchased at grossly inflated prices via stubhub.com. The court denied Stubhub’s motion to dismiss on plaintiffs’ claim that Stubhub had violated North Carolina’s anti-ticket scalping law. Two months later, an Oregon court granted a similar motion to dismiss brought by joint defendants Stubhub and eBay in a case concerning a Bruce Springsteen concert. In both cases, the issue presented was how far the immunity found in the Communications Decency Act section 230 should extend.

Hill v. Stubhub

Fehrs v. Stubhub

Plaintiff, a political candidate, brought action against Yahoo! Inc. for refusing to post his emails to their message boards, and IAC/Interactive Corp., the owners of Ask.com, to remove from their directory a website that made it appear in their search results that he was a member of the Communist Party. The court granted summary judgment for both defendants. The court found that Yahoo! was a private entity with no obligation to uphold First Amendment freedom of speech rights. The court found that IAC was protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which immunizes “interactive computer services”, which includes search engines like Ask.com, from liability for information arising from third-party content.


Murawski v. Pataki, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72749 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 26, 2007).