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"This case stems from a dangerous, cruel, and highly indecent use of the internet for the apparent purpose of revenge."

"This case stems from a dangerous, cruel, and highly indecent use of the internet for the apparent purpose of revenge." So writes Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, on behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a ruling issued today in the case known as Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc.

According to today's decision, the plaintiff's lawsuit (access the plaintiff's complaint initiating suit at this link) alleged that her former boyfriend created a Yahoo! account through which the plaintiff herself appeared to be soliciting men with whom to have sexual relations and that the Yahoo! account "also included the addresses, real and electronic, and telephone number at [plaintiff's] place of employment." Thereafter, men whom the plaintiff did not know "were peppering her office with emails, phone calls, and personal visits, all in the expectation of sex."

The trial court in November 2005 had issued a decision dismissing all of plaintiff's claims, holding that Yahoo! was immune from liability under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 even though plaintiff had alleged that Yahoo! "undertook to remove from its website material harmful to the plaintiff but failed to do so."

Today's ruling holds that plaintiff's complaint can be understood to allege a claim for promissory estoppel and that the Communications Decency Act would not necessarily preclude that claim.

Additional coverage of the trial court's ruling in this case can be accessed via Citizen Media Law Project, "Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions," and law professor Eric Goldman's "Technology & Marketing Law Blog."

Full post as published by How Appealing on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).