Court: ISPs Not Liable For Content

PerlDiver writes: "Free speech online scored a major win Wednesday. A federal judge ruled that ISPs are not responsible (under Section 230 of the CDA) for the content of Web sites hosted using their services. This goes a long way to removing the incentive for service providers to proactively censor such sites. (Interestingly enough, the case in question involved sites selling tapes of nude college athletes, shot in locker rooms without their knowledge.)" We've seen a number of cases like this, where an offended party tries to target the deep pockets of the ISP rather than the actual offender - that section of the CDA seems to be working as designed, however, to prevent these.

Comments

Re:microsoft?

[Trickster Coyote]

...this would protect Andover from anything that Slashdot has.

Probably not, since Andover actually owns Slashdot. By its ownership, Andover has the potential to control what content appears on Slashdot and thus would share some legal liability for the content. I think this ruling has more to do with ISPs who are hosting unrelated third party websites. They have no power to control the content and therefore (as this judge rightly ruled) they should bear no liability.