November 28, 2006

The California Supreme Court handed down a decision last week that states Web hosting companies and publishers are not liable for the defamatory statements made by site contributors. It also said that plaintiffs must look to the original source of the statements to seek recovery, according to various reports.

The Court's ruling came in the case of Stephen J. Barrett et al. vs. Ilena Rosenthal, when the California Supreme Court reversed an appeals court decision to hold Rosenthal accountable for republishing articles on a forum which alleged defamatory information about Barrett.

The Court stated that under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Some analysts say the ruling, while probably correct, might be less than ideal. The concept that Web publishers could, in some cases, be complicit with the comments posted on their sites creates a need for further legislation on the subject.

Congress may have to fine tune legislation to better define the roles of publishers and their responsibilities toward content for the courts.

Source: The WHIR