Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick





Class Action Suit Against Yahoo For Those Abused On Message Boards

from the it's-illegal-to-flame? dept

A lawyer in California is trying to drum up a class action lawsuit against Yahoo to get them to pay anyone who's been verbally abused on Yahoo's message boards. The lawyer in question is apparently pissed off at Yahoo because they wouldn't tell him who made fun of him on their boards a while back. He eventually sued them, and they gave him whatever info they had, but much of it turned out to be false (no, really, someone gave false info? shocker). So, now, pointing to Yahoo's terms of service that forbid "unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable," posts, the lawyer is trying to put together a class action lawsuit against Yahoo for not living up to stopping those types of posts. Of course, if this succeeds, then it would make sense for most message boards to no longer forbid such posts. This looks like yet another random lawsuit simply picking on a big company because they have money.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. A Barbed Wire World

    by dorpus - Aug 5th, 2004 @ 9:48pm

    If you think I am a jerk on here, you haven't seen me on some other forums. I've singlehandedly brought down a discussion site that used to have thousands of members, because I made everyone so upset. They used to have dozens of moderators on account of me, but now they are fleeing in droves because they're having nervous breakdowns. Every site on that topic throughout the internet is switching to invite-only sites.

    I see it as the future of the net, though.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Stephen Galton is a corrupt, incompetent control f

    by sue me - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 12:20am

    That is a fact. But don't worry, because he will no doubt have a heart attack before too long, sparing us all from his obnoxious existence.
    And he smells like fish shit too.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: A Barbed Wire World

    by thecaptain - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 4:02am

    and you are PROUD of this?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Re: A Barbed Wire World

    by alternatives - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 5:43am

    If you think I am a jerk on here,

    You are just part of the case studies used in Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments is all Dorpus.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Re: A Barbed Wire World

    by data64 - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 6:37am

    If you think I am a jerk on here

    This would be one reason I prefer Usenet newsgroups to web based forums. Most decent newsreaders have kill files and filters to weed out stuff you are not interested in.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. No Subject Given

    by Anonymous Coward - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 9:14am

    dorpus,
    you single handedly annoy the vast majority of posters here as well ... the difference is we just make fun of you or ignore you.

    The only thing I would believe your good @ " single handedly " is spanking your monkey

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. What do I NOT do?

    by dorpus - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 11:35am

    People accuse me of being many things. But what do I NOT do?

    I do not assume many guises and identities, have flame wars with myself, and drag down the level of discussion. I do not spam advertisements on here. I do not make death threats against Mike or other posters; why, I rarely respond to taunts. I do not post links to Techdirt on dark corners of the internet, nor do I make DoS attacks on the server. In summary, I have no plans to bring down techdirt, like I have other sites.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Re: What do I NOT do?

    by Mikester - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 12:37pm

    Oh thank you, your greatness. Whatever have we or has Mike done to deserve to be spared from your wrath?
    We bow at your feet with praise for your mercy and grace.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. Re: What do I NOT do?

    by dorpus - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 12:43pm

    No one has said anything to really offend me, just the garden-variety insults that I am a troll or whatever.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. Re: What do I NOT do?

    by alternatives - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 4:42pm

    In summary, I have no plans to bring down techdirt, like I have other sites.

    What a charming bit of humanity you are Dorpus.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  11. Re: What do I NOT do?

    by dorpus - Aug 6th, 2004 @ 6:18pm

    I figure Mike lives a stressful life running his underdog business, filled with uncertainties. He doesn't need to have his quality of life ruined by some random terrorist, right?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  12. Re: What do I NOT do?

    by Anonymous Coward - Aug 10th, 2004 @ 11:37am

    or the garden variety asshole like you either huh dorpus ?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It