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.

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.