Once Again, Craigslist Isn't Liable For Discriminatory Posts

Legal Issues

from the can't-sue-the-messenger dept

A little over two years ago, a civil rights group sued Craigslist, blaming the company for the fact that some of its users were posting discriminatory housing/roommate offers — which could violate the Fair Housing Act of 1968. However, as plenty of people noted at the time, section 230 of the CDA protects Craigslist as a service provider, not a publisher, meaning that Craigslist isn’t the party to sue here. The group could certainly go after the original posters for violating the law, but Craigslist is just the service provider and has no say in the content. That seemed obvious right from the beginning, but the civil rights group pushed forward and lost its case. The judge explained all of this to the lawyers… who filed an appeal anyway. The appeals court has now ruled as well, and (no surprise here) affirmed the original ruling, saying that Craigslist is a service provider, not a publisher, and therefore is not liable for discriminatory posts. As Eric Goldman points out, the ruling (again) makes this quite clear:

“Using the remarkably candid postings on craigslist, the Lawyers’ Committee can identify many targets to investigate. It can dispatch testers and collect damages from any landlord or owner who engages in discrimination….It can assemble a list of names to send to the Attorney General for prosecution. But given §230(c)(1) it cannot sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party’s plan to engage in unlawful discrimination.”

What will be interesting, however, is to see what happens now in a very similar lawsuit involving Roommates.com that is currently being reviewed in a different Circuit. Hopefully the court there comes to a similar conclusion and we stop getting these types of incorrectly targeted lawsuits.

Filed Under: discrimination, housing, safe harbor, section 230, service provider
Companies: craigslist

Verizon: Bandwidth Hogs Are A Tech Issue, Not A Legal Or Business Model Problem

Overhype

from the making-better-technology dept

While AT&T has been siding with Hollywood in saying that file sharing is bad (so bad!) and that it needs to filter file sharing to deal with it, Verizon very clearly stated a few months ago that it didn’t think that was appropriate. However, now it appears that Verizon has gone even further, in working with a P2P software maker to improve the efficiency of P2P to make it less of a bandwidth hog.

Now, there are a few points worth making on this announcement. First, part of it is clearly just hyping up one startup that is offering a “legal” P2P file sharing offering. Second, part of this is Verizon using the opportunity to tweak AT&T and make itself look much more consumer friendly (something that doesn’t often happen with Verizon, to be honest). Third, this hardly means (as some have been suggesting) that Verizon is “file sharing friendly.” It only works with the one app that worked on this test with Verizon. However, what it does show is that Verizon recognizes that “bandwidth hogs” really are a technology issue that can be dealt with via technology solutions on the backend, rather than legal or business model methods that make life worse for consumers. That, alone, is a lesson that hopefully other companies in the space (and politicians) will learn.

Filed Under: bandwidth, optimizing, p2p

House Says No To Retroactive Immunity

Politics

from the about-time dept

Despite a fear-mongering campaign filled with outright lies and fabrications, it appears that the Democrats in the House are actually asking the right questions about why we should grant retroactive immunity to telcos for potentially breaking the law in helping give the government access to information. They approved the version of the bill that they announced earlier this week, which would not get the telcos off the hook if they broke the law over the past few years.

Throughout this whole process, the one thing that has never been explained clearly is why it would possibly make sense to give the telcos immunity for breaking the law. There are perfectly legal means for the government to go out and request the information they wanted. To not go through those legal means makes very little sense, unless the government knew that it would not get approval. To anyone who claims that the government “needed” to do this, can you explain why they would “need” to do this without following the legally prescribed paths to do so? The US government is not free to do whatever it wants without oversight. That’s why we set up a government with three separate branches to have oversight of each other. Otherwise, the system can and will be abused. What’s happening here is that there appears to be quite a bit of evidence that the system was abused, and the White House (and the members of Congress who agree with the White House) are saying that we should ignore that. That seems problematic.

Luckily, (and, to be honest, surprisingly), it appears that some in Congress recognize this point, and are stating it quite explicitly. The EFF highlights the comments of Nancy Pelosi:

“Why would the Administration oppose a judicial determination of whether the companies already have immunity? There are at least three explanations:

First, the President knows that it was the Administration’s incompetence in failing to follow the procedures in statute that prevented immunity from being conveyed — that’s one possibility. They simply didn’t do it right.

Second, the Administration’s legal argument that the surveillance requests were lawfully authorized was wrong; or [third,] public reports that the surveillance activities undertaken by the companies went far beyond anything about which any Member of Congress was notified, as is required by the law.

None of these alternatives is attractive but they clearly demonstrate why the Administration’s insistence that Congress provide retroactive immunity has never been about national security or about concerns for the companies; it has always been about protecting the Administration.”

Of course, this is not nearly over yet. The Senate still needs to vote on legislation and the President would still need to approve it — and he’s made it clear that he’ll veto any bill that doesn’t include immunity. For all his complaints that not having a bill approved would make the US less safe, it would appear that it’s his demand for retroactive immunity that is actually holding up the bill’s passage. There is nothing in the current bill that makes the country any less safe. The only thing holding it up is a desire to brush aside questions about whether or not earlier activities broke the law.

Filed Under: congress, immunity, telcos, wiretapping

Sweden Becoming Less Friendly To File Sharing

Politics

from the all-that-lobbying-pays-off dept

Despite having politicians who seem to actually understand the real issues at stake surrounding file sharing (hint: it’s not a legal problem having to do with “pirates”), it appears that some in the country are getting fed up with the entertainment industry trying to portray Sweden as a “haven for pirates” thanks to the Pirate Bay (which isn’t even hosted in Sweden any more). Earlier this year charges were filed against The Pirate Bay, even though it’s still not clear if they actually violated any laws. And, now, some Swedish politicians are saying that ISPs should be required to cough up the information of those accused of sharing files. Oddly, this comes so soon after the EU decided that IP addresses are private info and various other countries in Europe have ruled that ISPs shouldn’t hand over info, as user privacy is much more important than propping up the entertainment industry’s business model.

Filed Under: file sharing, isps, pirate bay, privacy, sweden
Companies: pirate bay

Lou Reed Upset By MP3 Quality; Has He Ever Listened To Velvet Underground Recordings?

Say That Again

from the it's-not-about-audio-quality dept

Since when is Lou Reed an audiophile? Down at SXSW Reed gave a talk where he complained about the sound quality of MP3 technology and the fact that people didn’t realize how awful they sounded. This is a complaint made by quite a few other people as well, who seem to ignore the fact that for most people and most music, MP3 technology is perfectly good enough, and the convenience of being able to carry around more, is a lot more important than a barely (if at all) noticeable change in audio quality. In the meantime, has Lou Reed listened to any of his early Velvet Underground recordings? I don’t recall “audio quality” being one of the key characteristics of those songs…

Filed Under: lou reed, mp3, music, quality, velvet underground

Hospitals Should Tread Carefully On Hygiene Monitors

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the beeeeep! dept

Researchers have invented a device (via the Raw Feed) to remind hospital workers to wash their hands between patients. Bad hygiene is a serious problem in hospitals, because diseases can be spread from patient to patient. Unfortunately, doctors and nurses are often in a hurry and forget to wash up. The device tries to increase washing rates by installing infrared sensors over patient beds. When a health care worker comes near a patient, the system will try to detect whether the health care worker has washed his hands since seeing the last patient, and beeps if he has not. It’s a clever idea, but it seems to have a few problems. For one thing, it sounds like it only detects when a worker has disinfected using special alcohol dispensers included with the system. A soap and water washing doesn’t count, as far as the system is concerned. It also can’t detect if a health care worker has gone near a patient but not touched him or her. The big problem such a system would face is having health care workers view it as an annoyance rather than an asset. If the system frequently beeped at them when they weren’t doing anything wrong, they might start ignoring or even trying to disable it.

I think the key to making it work would be to make sure hospital workers view it as a helpful way to improve their own performance rather than a way of nagging them or penalizing them when they forget to wash their hands. Wearing the things would be irritating enough without having to worry about getting disciplined when the system made a mistake. One good approach might be to allow workers to disable the beeping feature, but continue collecting data about hand-washing rates. Even if the data weren’t perfect, it would be good enough to collect data on hygiene rates in different parts of the hospital. Those parts that showed lower-than-average hygiene could receive additional training.

Filed Under: hospitals, hygiene, technology

Comcast Sues The FCC Over Telco Favoritism

Legal Issues

from the no-surprise-there dept

We’ve been pointing out that the Kevin Martin and the FCC’s opinion on certain subjects seems to change over the same issue depending on whether the issue deals with cable companies or telcos. For Martin, it seems the telcos can do no wrong, and the cable co’s can do no right. Comcast has finally had enough and has sued the FCC over the questionable 30% cap that Martin proposed last year soon after granting yet another huge telco merger. Even worse, the 30% cap seems to have been based on questionable data and without any reasonable justification. It seems punitive more than anything else. Comcast is hoping that Martin will now have to explain himself in court.

Filed Under: favoritism, fcc, kevin martin
Companies: comcast, fcc

All The YouTube MeToos Combined May Not Be Worth $1.65B

Failures

from the the-best-laid-plans... dept

As YouTube got super popular and eventually sold to Google for $1.65 billion, a bunch of other startups tried to hop on the bandwagon and become the “next YouTube” in order to cash out as well. In fact, some of them had actually been around since before YouTube, but morphed to make themselves more and more like YouTube, so that there basically are a large number of clones out there that don’t offer very much in the way of differentiated functionality. Of course, through all of this, YouTube has continued to thrive and grow, meaning that these MeToo(b)s haven’t found enough interest to really get very far. Some have a lot of traffic, but hosting all that video is expensive (as YouTube was all too painfully aware, as it needed to borrow $15 million just to pay the bills before the Google deal closed). So, now with so many MeToo players out there, and no one looking to swoop down and pay $1.65 billion for their traffic and indistinguishable technology, many are expecting something of a shake-out, as there are way too many players in the space, they’re losing a ton of money, and none of them have done much to stand out or build something that others want to buy. Plus, with YouTube opening up its APIs it may be even more difficult for these clones to stay afloat.

Filed Under: online video
Companies: youtube

Does The Math On 1,000 True Fans Add Up?

Culture

from the john-scalzi-doesn't-think-so dept

Last week, when I wrote about Kevin Kelly’s concept of content creators building up 1,000 True Fans, I was pretty careful to focus mainly on the concept of “True Fans” rather than the 1,000 number. Author John Scalzi (who we were also just talking about for his results in giving away ebooks) has taken Kelly to task, suggesting that when you do the math, the numbers don’t add up. It’s a good read, though I don’t think it actually takes anything away from the entire concept of focusing on your “True Fans.” Also, perhaps I misread Kelly’s piece, but I don’t think he meant to say that building up 1,000 True Fans is easy (the main point that Scalzi rebuts). Kelly also puts in plenty of caveats at the end of his piece, noting that you have to adjust the concept depending on the situation, and it certainly doesn’t apply to everyone. In the end, I think both pieces make sense – and perhaps Kelly was a bit over eager in setting the number at 1,000. However, the key point that Kelly makes stands: if you connect with fans in a real and meaningful way, it may take time, but you can start to put together business models that will allow you to support yourself, without having to go the traditional route where only the top of the top can actually make a living. That’s still quite different than how the world was just a short while ago.

Filed Under: 1000 true fans, john scalzi, kevin kelly