Marshall’s Locksmith Service v. Google, LLC

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Plaintiffs, 14 locksmith companies, filed suit alleging that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have conspired to "flood the market" of online search results with information about so-called "scam" locksmiths, in order to extract additional advertising revenue. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the amended complaint as barred by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that 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. The parties agreed as to the first and third prongs of the section 230 test for determining whether the Act mandates dismissal, holding that defendants were a provider or user of an interactive computer service and that the complaint sought to hold defendants liable as the publisher or speaker of that information.As to the contested second prong of the section 230 test, the court held that the information for which plaintiff seeks to hold defendants liable was information provided by another information content provider and thus dismissal was warranted under the Act. In this case, defendants' translation of information that comes from the scam locksmiths' webpages fell within the scope of section 230 immunity. View "Marshall's Locksmith Service v. Google, LLC" on Justia Law