Sturm v. eBay [1]

Kiel J. Sturm sued eBay, Inc. for defamation after it refused to remove a comment critical of him left by a buyer, even after he obtained a court order ruling that the comment was defamatory.

According to articles in the San Jose Mercury News [2] and Yahoo! Tech [3], Sturm initially sued the person responsible for the comment in small claims court.  After settling the matter, both parties sent a letter to eBay requesting that the comment be removed.  eBay responded that it required a court order stating that the comment was defamatory, so Sturm re-sued the buyer to get such an order.  When he presented it to eBay, however, eBay refused once again to remove the offending comment, stating that the court order contained "too many ambiguities."

At that point, Sturm sued eBay directly.  According to Eric Goldman at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog [4], the court dismissed the case on July 27, 2006, finding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230") provided eBay with immunity from liability for the buyer's comments.

According to the Mercury News article [2], eBay eventually removed the offending comment.