The court in Ben Ezra, Weinstein & Co. v. American Online held AOL immune from liability based upon Section 509 of the Communications Decency Privacy Act.
Section 230 provides that no provider of an interactive computer service will be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The key to AOL prevailing on its immunity defense was establishing that it never produced or created any of the inaccurate information. Two independent third parties—a stock quote provider and a software provider—jointly provided the information to AOL. During oral argument, AOL conceded that Section 230 would not immunize it with respect to information it developed or created by itself. In addition, AOL acknowledged that, in an appropriate situation, an interactive computer service could also act as an information content provider by participating in the creation or development of information, and thus not quality for Section 230 immunity.
In explaining its ruling, the Tenth Circuit stated that the plain language of Section 230 creates a federal immunity for any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third party. The court pointed out that Congress enacted Section 230 to promote freedom of speech in the new Internet medium by eliminating the threat of tort-based lawsuits against interactive service providers for injury caused by the communications of others.
Interestingly, the U.S. law on this subject is at odds with the current law in Britain. In the 1999 Godfrey v. Demon Internet Ltd. case, a Great Britain Internet service provider was found to be a publisher and liable for what was posted by a third party on a bulletin board.
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