Yahoo Sued over Child Porn Site
“A minor and his parents have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Yahoo and a man who once operated a Yahoo Groups site where members traded child pornography. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, charged that Yahoo breached its duties by allowing co-defendant Mark Bates and others to share child pornography on a site, called Candyman, that Bates created and moderated via the Yahoo Groups service. Yahoo spokeswomen Mary Osako said the company had not been served and did not comment on pending litigation. Bates pleaded guilty in 2002 to setting up the Candyman group site for the trade and distribution of child pornography, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time. The site attracted thousands of users and was in operation for two months before Yahoo closed it down in February 2001. Pornographic photos of the plaintiff — who is using the name Johnny Doe — were taken and posted to the Candyman site by a neighbor, said the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged that Yahoo was aware of the activity on the site and that it took no action to block or remove the pornographic images of Doe and other children. Attorneys familiar with cases involving online service providers said the Communications Decency Act generally shielded Web sites from responsibility for material posted by users.” —Yahoo (US)
(Thanks to Idiot Who Needs To Be More Mindful Of His Online Actions for the link.)
It is no doubt regrettable that the plaintiff, a minor calling himself Johnny Doe to maintain his privacy, was victimized by a pedophiliac neighbor. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for him and his family to file a civil lawsuit against the pedophile who exploited him. (Anyone know the exact legal issues surrounding such a move?) But to blame Yahoo or to claim that Yahoo was negligent by allowing the group of kiddie porn collectors to use their service? That’s ridiculous.
In the first place, there are so many groups on Yahoo that it would be impossible to moderate them all — besides which, would anybody really want Yahoo to moderate them all? In the second place, there is no reason in the world that Yahoo would tolerate the existence of kiddie porn groups (or, for that matter, groups devoted to other sorts of illegal activity — terrorism, drug trade, hacking). What could possibly motivate them to tolerate kiddie porn? Do the plaintiffs think that Yahoo is secretly staffed by pedophiles? Hardly likely. And even if the company were pedo-friendly for some weird reason, it would hardly pay for it to tolerate illegal activity — since this tolerance would ultimately result in the business being closed down.
The truth is that Yahoo did shut down the offending group — probably within ten minutes of learning of the group’s existence and verifying its nefarious purpose. Yahoo also collaborated with law enforcement to help track down the members of the group. What more do the plaintiffs want from Yahoo? Apparently one thing: money. And that, sadly enough, is probably the real reason for this lawsuit. It is yet another instance of someone utilizing a personal tragedy to extort a settlement from a blameless company.
Everyone knows, that Yahoo is notorious for it’s lack of policing it’s systems.
it’s not yahoo’s fault that parents can’t watch and controll there kids……..yahoo in my oppion is not at fault.
I don’t see Yahoo as lax, but there are what millions of members and there are maybe hundreds of groups that pop up every day. How can you expect Yahoo to monitor them all. I know yahoo has closed down groups and chat rooms dedicated to such topics as the artist Dolcett, rape fantasies, snuff and other “extreme” fantasies. So it is not as they are totally lax in closing down grops and chat rooms that violate the TOS.
The parents of this kid are no doubt simply being money leeches. How much can the kiddie porn guy have–well he is in jain and probably spent most of what he had on his defense. Yahoo has millions. Typical shakedown artists.
If I was on the jury, I wouldn’t give them the time of day. Too bad we don’t have a loser pay system in the US, so these extortion artists would have to pay Yahoo’s legal bills.
Yahoo shouldnt be closed I rp there all the time
Yahoo can’t monitor all rooms and sites that pop up using thier service, its almost impossible. And Yahoo was not making money off of this like many news sites say they were, the ads that pop up are automated, Yahoo doesnt go into a room and place the Ad. And even if Yahoo goes into the Rooms and Groups and shuts them down, 100 more of the same topic spring up in 5 minutes, theres no way to stop it totaly, the world is full of perverts, child porn is bad, but Yahoo cant be held responsible.
You know these people that are giving the lawsuit are just not right in the head. First off there are hundreds of programs that can help avoid stuff like this. 1. Netnanny my friend has the program and every time there is adult things like you can’t say certian words in chat or ya get booted and such. 2nd your internet servcice provider like aol has child locks on it so that way you cannot visit yahoo chat. There are bunchs of things to prevent what has happened these weeks the people sueing yahoo have no right. The kid chose to enter the chat room, the kid chose to talk to this guy, yahoo didn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to.
Yahoo even has blocks you can go into your preferences and prevent vulgar language in the rooms they just show up as stars.
This family needs to get a reality check and realize that their kid chose to do all this yahoo didn’t make him, and no one else did.
Well if i may say to some of these other replies, It seems to me that some of you are forgetting that first off the pictures were taking by their neighbor, im sure the young boy didnt enjoy the experience, if anyone is to blame it the lowlife dumbass that took the picture(neighbor) and posted it into the yahoo group to trade pics for it.Does anyone know the name of the group or chat room they where using to trade this kiddie porn from, if the name of the room doesnt really stand out as a “room” or a “group” that would have the intrests of that nature i dont see how they could be liable, yet if the name of the “group” or the “room” did express the illegal act such as kiddie porn i think yahoo should be held liable to a extent
thank you for your time““cubbiesn05
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