Yahoo Being Sued for 10 Mill Over CP Site
 

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...c306407_newsml


Yahoo sued over Candyman child porn site
Thu May 12, 2005 09:14 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, May 12 (Reuters) - A minor and his parents have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and a man who once operated a Yahoo Groups site where members traded child pornography.
The lawsuit, filed on May 9 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.

"Unless the plaintiff has very concrete proof that Yahoo knew that this group contained child pornography, it's very likely that Yahoo will not be liable," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.

"We believe that they knew, and at a minimum didn't exercise reasonable care on their sites," said Adam Voyles, the plaintiffs' lead attorney.

A child pornography investigation led by the FBI and dubbed Operation Candyman targeted Yahoo Groups users and resulted in the arrest of more than 100 people in the United States.

they won't get shit. i bet on it.
no way.

Yeah, not a penny

Out of court settlement?

Nah, I doubt Yahoo would try to sweep this under the rug if they did nothing wrong.

they won't win.

they're not responsible for the content their users post

If the feds thought yahoo was at fault somehow then trust me they would have hauled thier asses to jail too.

Anybody can start a group yahoo has like 30 billion of them. Like they can keep track of every one of them.

Somehow I doubt Yahoo knew of a child porn group and did nothing about it.

haha 10mil? thats it, come on, the biggest site on the internet, they make more then that in a day...

Free publicity stunt.. I would take guess Yahoo paid them to place the law suit knowing how money hungry and bored yahoo's legal council team is.. LOL

now the got 50,000,000 more hits a day from the pedo's out there, hoping to find some more... cha ching!

if this doesn't work they can always put a finger in some Wendy's chili!

i remember before 2000 i wanted to report a site hosted at yahoo and it was impossible to get a contact there. Not sure how easy it is now.

"A child pornography investigation led by the FBI and dubbed Operation Candyman targeted Yahoo Groups users and resulted in the arrest of more than 100 people in the United States."

The FBI likely told them to keep it operational and provide information to them for as many surfers / users as possible, which lead to the arrests of the 100 people.

I don't think they're get a penny, or if they do, then Yahoo could / should sue the FBI / government for damages caused by their request / activities, even though they were the morale and right thing to do.

Matt