The Seattle Times reports on a case that’s important for filtering vendors because they operate under a presumption of federal immunity for blocking websites. From the Seattle Times:
Kaspersky treated Zango’s software as malware and “protected” users from it, prompting a lengthy lawsuit from Zango that appears to have ended with a ruling this morning by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court sided with Kaspersky, rejecting Zango’s appeal of an earlier U.S. District Court decision. A key issue was the leeway Kaspersky could use to categorize Zango’s software as malware and block it from users’ computers. The court decided that Kaspersky could claim protection under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity for computer services that help restrict access to objectionable materials. But one judge said the case raises questions about vague language in the act that could enable computer security and filtering companies to abuse their immunity, blocking competititors without informing users, for instance…
The full ruling is here. When I managed PR at two filtering vendors – Secure Computing and N2H2 – I used to regularly get messages threatening to sue because a website owner objected to how we categorized their site. These disputes were nearly always settled quickly by either recategorizing the website or reaffirming the categorization. I’m not aware of any other instances of filtering or security vendors being sued for website categorization.
Filed under: Filtering Companies, Legal
