Court Finds No Room for Suit Against MySpace Over Sexual Assault

The social networking site MySpace.com cannot be held liable under U.S. law for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl who met her attacker through the site, a federal judge in Texas has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks said MySpace is shielded by the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes online service providers from state tort claims stemming from information or content provided by third parties, such as users of the service.

The purpose of Section 230, enacted in 1996, was to ensure that the threat of litigation would not discourage the growth and development of the Internet and other kinds of online services.

"To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing that duty, would of course stop MySpace's business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication, which Congress in its wisdom has decided to protect," Judge Sparks said.

The decision appears to be the first to apply Section 230's immunity provision to MySpace, which is facing other lawsuits alleging the site does not do enough to screen out sexual predators.

Last month four families filed state tort suits against MySpace and its parent, News Corp., in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing the companies of failing to prevent pedophiles from using the site to make contact with - and ultimately molest - their children.

MySpace allows users to create profiles consisting of text, video, photographs and other materials. Users can link to other people's profiles or invite others to link to their profiles, creating large networks of "friends."

The site is especially popular among teenagers and young adults and, according to Judge Sparks' opinion, is the most visited Web site in the country.

In this case "Julie Doe" and her mother, referred to in court filings as Jane Doe, sued MySpace and News Corp. in a New York state court, alleging negligence, fraud and misrepresentation. News Corp. is headquartered in New York, and the plaintiffs live in Texas.

According to the complaint, Julie created a profile on MySpace.com in the summer of 2005, when she was 13. The following year, after Julie turned 14, a 19-year-old MySpace user, also a Texas resident, contacted her and the two began communicating, via MySpace and later by phone.

The complaint said the 19-year-old man met Julie in person May 12, 2006, and sexually assaulted her. Jane Doe contacted local police the next day to report the alleged assault, and after an investigation the man was arrested and indicted, the lawsuit said.

According to the complaint, MySpace and News Corp. have publicly stated that they are taking steps to keep sexual predators off the site, but the companies have not followed through on those promises.

The defendants removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and successfully moved for a transfer to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

The companies then filed a motion to dismiss, which Judge Sparks granted.

The plaintiffs had argued that Section 230 was meant to preempt only defamation claims and other lawsuits based on the content of materials posted by third parties via an online service.

The allegations in this case have nothing to do with the content of the messages between Julie and her attacker, the plaintiffs said.

But Judge Sparks rejected that narrow interpretation, citing a recent ruling from another Texas federal court that endorsed Section 230 immunity for Yahoo! in a suit claiming the online service failed to shut down a child-pornography "e-group" that was hosted on the service by a Yahoo! user. Doe v. Bates, No. 5:05-cv-91-DF-CMC, 2006 WL 3813758 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 27, 2006).

The judge said the present case is akin to Zeran v. America Online Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said AOL was immune from a suit alleging it failed to remove messages about plaintiff Robert Zeran.

The messages advertised merchandise bearing offensive slogans related to the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and provided Zeran's phone number. He received numerous harassing and threatening phone calls as a result of the messages, he alleged.

"Plaintiffs' allegations that MySpace knew sexual predators were using the service to communicate with minors and failed to react appropriately can be analogized to Zeran's claims that AOL failed to act quickly enough to remove the ads and to prevent the posting of additional ads after AOL was on notice that the content was false," Judge Sparks said.

MySpace, like AOL, is immune because it is merely an intermediary that provides a forum for third-party users to exchange messages, the judge said.