CA Lawyer Sues Yahoo over Message-Board Posts

[OneFinger]

"LOS ANGELES, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A California lawyer who has waged an ongoing battle with Yahoo Inc. over personal attacks made against him on Yahoo message boards has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the company.

 

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday by associates of corporate attorney Stephen Galton, claims Yahoo has unfairly protected people who post negative messages on its bulletin boards and falsely advertised that it prevents such abusive messages..."

 

To read the entire message, go to:

 

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004080520030002585361&dt=20040805200300&w=RTR&coview=

 

What ramifications could this lawsuit have on sites like this?

[Guy Fawkes]

To the best of my knowledge, it's been up all the way to the Supreme Court with the Internet Service Provider prevailing. As long as a "reasonable" amount of control is in place, the ISP tends have a Common Carrier status which makes them relatively immune.

 

I don't have the cite handy, so take what I say with a grain of salt, the case that went up may have been a narrower focus than what the California Lawyer contents. IMHO his case will fail, but the 9th Circuit has always been a hard Court to predict and I suspect this case will eventually end up there.