Overview
In an opinion yesterday, Judge Oetken ruled that internet search engines are immune from liability under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) for indexing websites with negative articles about the plaintiff, a lawyer:
Courts have interpreted the CDA to give search engines broad immunity from defamation and other related causes of action resulting from their aggregation and republication of third-party content. . . . Because Defendants were acting only as publishers of sites whose content caused [the plaintiff’s] alleged injury, the CDA immunizes Defendants from liability. And the CDA’s broad protection for internet publishers also protects Defendants from any obligation to remove or de-index any links. The Court is sensitive to the deep personal harms that can result from hurtful information posted on the internet. But the CDA prevents individuals from “su[ing] the messenger.”
