Oregon Woman Sues Yahoo for $3 Million

bigtallmofo writes "After notifying Yahoo that two member profiles about her were not authorized, Cecilia Barnes of Oregon is suing Yahoo for $3 million for failing to take down the profiles in a timely manner. The profiles allegedly set up by her ex-boyfriend contained nude photos of her along with her email address and work phone number. (Note: The member profiles have since been taken down by Yahoo)."

Comments

Re:Adult Groups a Liability Risk

[EyesofWolf]

I agree, she definitely can't be the first. If you think about this before the internet, there have been cases where people have had naked or otherwise naughty pictures of themselves exposed in printed format before. You don't sue the copy store that allowed the person to make photocopies, do you? She should probably be suing the ex.

Of course, on the other hand, the part of her argument that does hold water is that she asked for the profiles to be taken down since they were fradulent. I do think it is reasonable to expect a reasonable turn around time from the company if you find something out there that you did not post. According to the article, she sent requests over three months, and received no response.

Re:Adult Groups a Liability Risk

[sTalking_Goat]

I agree, she definitely can't be the first.

You aint kidding. Take walk over to Empornium and check out the Homemade section. Revenge porn is a booming sector.

Serious Issue

[airship]

I've been trying for a year to get classmates.com to remove the listing for my wife, who died. It's seriously disturbing to go up there and see her still listed. So I don't go anymore.

The issues of who owns accounts, how they are handled when someone dies, and whether a host is responsible for verifying information in a public listing, have simply not yet been addressed, even though the web is 13 years old.

Re:don't be dumb enough to pose for nude photos

[LilGuy]

People haven't understood the power of the internet yet though. Sure you could always take dirty photos and risk your ex showing them to everyone you know. But NOW, they can show them to everyone you know, and everyone you might meet.

People will come around tho.. either we'll stop feeding peoples' bad ethics (spreading gossip), or people will wise up.

I wouldn't hold my breath on the ethics issue.

Re:Adult Groups a Liability Risk

[jarich]

she totally lost me at the $3 million bit.

The point of a lawsuit isn't always to get the money, it's to get the attention of the company in question. Since Yahoo ignored her for several months, and the lawsuit got the profiles pulled, I'd say 3 million is a great number.

Also, with a $$ driven corporation, the only way to effect change is to impact their profit margin. Asking for $1,000 wouldn't have been enough money to make Yahoo change any policies. But if she gets even a fraction of the three million, Yahoo will have to start taking removal requests a little more seriously.