Yahoo Sued For Failing To Take Down Naked Photos

from the response-time... dept

While it's clearly not any website's responsibility to police all the content on their site if they allow people to register and post content themselves -- there are still questions about how quickly a site needs to respond after being informed of misuse. When it comes to copyrighted materials, the DMCA has a takedown process that requires sites to take down infringing materials quickly. What about other types of problems? Yahoo is being sued over its failure to respond to a woman who requested they take down a fake profile of hers. It turns out that her ex-boyfriend had posted a fake profile, including naked pictures while listing her work address. The woman claims she contacted Yahoo and asked them to remove the profile, but they did not respond. No response is a problem -- but Yahoo is a large company. What's unclear from the article is if Yahoo has a clear, and easily understood process for complaining about such things. If they do, and she followed it, and it still didn't work -- that's a problem. If they don't have any process, that's a problem as well. On the other side of things, the article doesn't say whether or not the woman is suing the ex-boyfriend, who appears to be the person who really caused the problem, rather than Yahoo. She certainly should be going after him before going after Yahoo.
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  • identicon
    thatguy, 27 May 2005 @ 12:08pm

    one problem...

    How is she supposed to squeeze 3 million out of her ex-boyfriend? I doubt he has it.

    Also, if her ex-boyfriend isn't a complete moron, there probably isn't any way to prove that he was the one who actually put up the fake profile in the first place. It could have been any anonymous user from any number of public places with internet access. She just assumed it was him (and it probably was) and therefore that's what the news articles state.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      jojo, 27 May 2005 @ 12:33pm

      Re: one problem...

      Many people who thought they were anonymous online and doing this sort of thing unfortunately found out that there are many ways for ISP's and the goverement to trace something back to its source. Sometimes it's harder, sometimes easier. In order to post on Yahoo, you need to have an email address that has been verfied. You don't have to show that email address but there are backlinks that Yahoo can access that can be followed.

      Unless he was using an anonymous proxy, they can probably find him.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        data64, 27 May 2005 @ 2:23pm

        Re: one problem...

        you need to have an email address that has been verfied. You don't have to show that email address but there are backlinks that Yahoo can access

        Ever hear of Mailinator or dogpile ?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          data64, 27 May 2005 @ 7:33pm

          Re: Re: one problem...

          Ever hear of Mailinator or dogpile ?

          Sorry, I meant dodgeit not dogpile.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2005 @ 4:31pm

      Re: one problem...

      Just because she can�t squeeze her ex-boyfriend�s balls (anymore) for the $$$, does NOT, repeat, DOES NOT mean that YAHOO, or anyone else is to blame for what the (and lets be clear about this) ass-hole ex-boyfriend did.

      Just because you can sue someone, does not mean that they are guilty. Just because a company has $$$ does not mean that you are entitled to it.

      The person who is wrong, the person who is liable is the ex-boyfriend� Yahoo may have been slow, or even negligent in taking down the crap that this guy put up, and due to that, they may have SOME liability� but just because she can�t get money from the boyfriend, does not make Yahoo, or anyone else liable.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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