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Home > Doe v. Bates

Doe v. Bates [1]

Submitted by DMLP Staff on Mon, 09/10/2007 - 15:59

Summary

Threat Type: 

Lawsuit

Date: 

05/09/2005

Status: 

Concluded

Disposition: 

Dismissed (total)

Location: 

Texas

Verdict or Settlement Amount: 

N/A

Legal Claims: 

Conspiracy
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
Negligence
Publication of Private Facts
The parents of a child who was victimized by an online pornography group filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! alleging that it knowingly hosted illegal child pornography on the "Candyman" Yahoo! Group. The plaintiffs sued both the moderator of that "e-group" (who was... read full description
Parties

Party Issuing Legal Threat: 

John Doe

Party Receiving Legal Threat: 

Mark Bates; Yahoo! Inc.

Type of Party: 

Individual

Type of Party: 

Individual
Large Organization

Location of Party: 

  • Georgia

Location of Party: 

  • California
  • Texas
  • Delaware

Legal Counsel: 

Adam Voyles, Geoffrey Culbertson, Kelly Tidwell

Legal Counsel: 

John Crisp, Patrick Carome, Samir Jain
Description

The parents of a child who was victimized by an online pornography group filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! alleging that it knowingly hosted illegal child pornography on the "Candyman" Yahoo! Group. The plaintiffs sued both the moderator of that "e-group" (who was criminally convicted and imprisoned for his involvement) and Yahoo!

On December 27, 2006, the district court dismissed the case aginst both defendants. The court applied the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. sec. 230) and stated that immunity for service providers is not lost when the conduct in question is a criminal act.

Related Links: 

  • Blog entry (16 Feb 2006) discussing Yahoo!'s lack of liability [2]
  • Law.com article (2 May 2006) discussing the case in the context of the trend to limit ISP liability for criminal or tortious user-uploaded contented [3]
  • Out-law.com article (13 May 2005) on the filing of the lawsuit [4]
Details

Web Site(s) Involved: 

Yahoo! Groups [5]

Content Type: 

  • Text

Publication Medium: 

Forum

Subject Area: 

  • Third-Party Content
  • Children
  • Criminal
  • Section 230
  • Obscenity
Court Information & Documents

Jurisdiction: 

  • Texas

Source of Law: 

  • United States
  • Texas

Court Name: 

Eastern District of Texas

Court Type: 

Federal

Case Number: 

5:05CV00091

Relevant Documents: 

PDF icon DoeVBates12_27_06.pdf [6]
PDF icon 2005-05-09-Doe Complaint.pdf [7]

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Source URL (modified on 08/20/2014 - 11:03pm): https://www.dmlp.org/threats/doe-v-bates

Links
[1] https://www.dmlp.org/threats/doe-v-bates
[2] http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/02/yahoo_not_civil.htm
[3] http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1146051864361
[4] http://www.out-law.com/page-5691
[5] http://groups.yahoo.com/
[6] https://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/DoeVBates12_27_06.pdf
[7] https://www.dmlp.org/sites/dmlp.org/files/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/2005-05-09-Doe%20Complaint.pdf