On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Eric Cordian wrote:
An appeals court in Florida has ruled against a woman who sued America Online because one of its customers, a convicted sex offender, used an AOL chat group to try to sell the woman's 11-year-old son a pornographic video. The court said that federal law protects online services from being held liable for the messages transmitted by their members sell the videotape of the boy. The defeated lawsuit, which is being appealed to the Supreme Court, tried to characterize America Online as "a home shopping network for pedophiles and child pornographers." (AP/Washington Post 15 Oct 98)
As I recall, the individual was trying to sell a pornographic video featuring the woman's 11 year old son, which is another thing entirely.
Not really. If the service providor is to be held accountable for what its members post/say/etc., they would have to monitor *all* traffic in order to police their members. In addition, even if the providor *were* monitoring, they can only be reactive - do you expect them to monitor and censor all traffic before releasing it? Looks like an attempt to bring in a "deep pockets" defendant. -r.w.