http://blog.internetcases.com/2008/04/03/how-the-roommatescom-decision-is-good-for-section-230/ Covering law and the Internet since 2005. Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:05:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://blog.internetcases.com/2008/04/03/how-the-roommatescom-decision-is-good-for-section-230/#comment-8465 Jeff Childers Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:59:21 +0000 http://blog.internetcases.com/?p=414#comment-8465 The decision in Roommates calls into question the two previous 9th Circuit cases interpreting s. 230: Carafano and Batzel. The Roommates opinion mentions the conflict with Carafano (the court retreats from that holding as overly broad). Batzel involved a guy who received a defamatory email from a handyman, edited it, and sent it out on his email listserv. In that case, the 9th Circuit held the guy was not an "original content provider" under 230. What is not clear is how the court distinguishes creating a drop-down box for users to select from (in Roommates) makes a service provider an "original content provider" but selecting, editing, and retransmitting an email (in Batzel) does not. It is also interesting the Roommates court reaches to the 7th Circuit for support. The 7th Circuit is the only jurisdiction to have disapproved of the Zeran opinion, which got the ball started on service provider immunity in the first place (the 7th has questioned whether 230 provides any immunity at all). Roommates is a bizarre opinion and there will be fallout. The decision in Roommates calls into question the two previous 9th Circuit cases interpreting s. 230: Carafano and Batzel. The Roommates opinion mentions the conflict with Carafano (the court retreats from that holding as overly broad). Batzel involved a guy who received a defamatory email from a handyman, edited it, and sent it out on his email listserv. In that case, the 9th Circuit held the guy was not an “original content provider” under 230. What is not clear is how the court distinguishes creating a drop-down box for users to select from (in Roommates) makes a service provider an “original content provider” but selecting, editing, and retransmitting an email (in Batzel) does not. It is also interesting the Roommates court reaches to the 7th Circuit for support. The 7th Circuit is the only jurisdiction to have disapproved of the Zeran opinion, which got the ball started on service provider immunity in the first place (the 7th has questioned whether 230 provides any immunity at all). Roommates is a bizarre opinion and there will be fallout.

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