Supreme Court backs AOL
The high court lets stand a ruling that AOL and other Net providers may not be held liable for defamatory material posted on their systems.
The case, monitored widely by the industry and civil rights groups, was brought by Kenneth Zeran, who sued the company after an unknown AOL member posted defamatory messages about him. By deciding against hearing the case, the Supreme Court lets stand a lower court's ruling in favor of AOL.
Today's decision "sets an important precedent that's encouraging free speech on the Internet," said George Vradenburg, AOL's senior vice president for general counsel. "It means Internet service providers are not liable for the speech that flows through their systems. The contrary result would have meant that Internet service providers would have had to self-censor.
"It would have provided a crushing blow to free speech on the Internet," he added. "It would have shut down a great deal of communication."
In earlier decisions, the U.S. District Court in Virginia and the 4th Circuit Appeals Court ruled that AOL was not liable for postings by anonymous individuals who misrepresented Zeran as the seller of T-shirts with offensive phrases about the Oklahoma City bombing, such as "Finally, a day care center that keeps the kids quiet--Oklahoma 1995." (See related story)
David Sobel, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he worried that the ruling gives online services too much leeway, especially since it comes on top of an April federal court decision to absolve AOL of potential libel for having run a controversial column by Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge.
"I think there should be some degree of accountability on the part of online services as there is for other forms of media, and I have a problem with the idea that any Internet-based publisher should have greater protections than print media," Sobel added. "The results would have been different had this involved the New York Times. A distinction has been made that probably isn't justified."
Sobel said he understood the need for the Good Samaritan provision because, without it, online services were effectively barred from removing sites it deemed illegal or inappropriate, for fear of being held legally responsible for all postings.
"I think it's a matter of the online industry getting its cake and eating it too," he said. "The question is: Did Congress intend that in a case like Zeran, where the service is actually directed to defamatory material [but doesn't remove it] that the company would just throw up their hands and say we have no responsibility here...This was a knowing retention of defamatory material. By the same token, there's nothing in the way this provision has been interpreted by the courts to prevent willful retention of defamatory material."
Barry Steinhardt, president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, hailed the ruling.
The ruling comes at an especially auspicious time for the for AOL, along with the rest of the Internet industry: Politicians and government bodies are taking an especially hard look at regulating content on the Net. While some bodies, such as the Federal Trade Commission have advocated regulation, others, such as the Department of Commerce have said they want the industry to regulate itself.