9th Circus shields Yahoo! from lawsuits

How does the media manage to claim the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is so liberal, when it comes up with bizarre rulings like this?

When an individual sues a corporation in the 9th Circus, you can almost bet your life savings what the outcome is going to be. This is the same 9th Circuit that gutted the judgment against Exxon that resulted from the Valdez oil spill, after all.

Corporations hold a special place in what passes for the 9th Circuit's brains.

Despite all the criticism here of Yahoo! lately, the Internet giant was once respected, during its early years. These days, however, Yahoo! is shorthand for a sad world of online capriciousness.

Recently, an Oregon woman sued Yahoo! after her former boyfriend allegedly used Yahoo! to post nude photos that were taken of her without her consent and create a phony account to pose as her in a chat room to solicit sex. This resulted in strangers visiting the woman in an attempt to have sex with her.

Although the alleged behavior of the former boyfriend is outrageous, you may be asking what Yahoo! did wrong. Well, here's the big mistake Yahoo! made: Yahoo! failed to remove the fake account for months after the woman complained. Even with media attention, Yahoo! still didn't remove it. Yahoo! is so quick to remove mailing lists if someone mentions bubble gum, but it took months to get rid of a harassing user?

The woman had every reason to sue Yahoo! If there ever was a reason to sue an Internet company, that would be it.

But now the 9th Circus has shielded Yahoo! from lawsuits like this. The court says Yahoo! and other Internet companies are generally protected from being sued for their own idiotic failure to remove fraudulent accounts that are designed for the purposes of harassment and revenge.

Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain (a Reagan appointee) decreed that the fascist Telecommunications Act of 1996 shields Yahoo!

What's that again?

Supporters of this theory have long argued that Internet companies should be immune from liability for users' behavior just as phone companies are immune from liability for private conversations used to plot crimes. That's a bullshit argument, because the phony account on Yahoo! wasn't a private communication.

No real legal theory protects Yahoo! from being sued in a case like this. But in the matchbook law world of the right-wing 9th Circus, laws are seldom an obstacle to the corporate empire.

The plaintiff may still press ahead with suing Yahoo!, but only on breach of contract grounds for not deleting the fraudulent account when it promised to.

(Source: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Woman-Cant-Sue-Yahoo-for-Posting-Nude-Pics.html)