Carafano v. Metrosplash.Com. Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 August 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-55658.,02-55658.
• Citation: Carafano v. Metrosplash.Com. Inc., 339 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2003)
• Parties: Christianne CARAFANO, a/k/a Chase Masterson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. METROSPLASH.COM, INC., a Delaware corporation; Lycos, Inc., a Delaware corporation; Matchmaker.com, Inc., a Texas corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

339 F.3d 1119

Christianne CARAFANO, a/k/a Chase Masterson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.METROSPLASH.COM, INC., a Delaware corporation; Lycos, Inc., a Delaware corporation; Matchmaker.com, Inc., a Texas corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 02-55658.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted June 2, 2003.

Filed August 13, 2003.

Stephen F. Rohde and Mechele M. Berencsi, Rohde & Victoroff, Los Angeles, California, for the appellant.

Timothy L. Alger, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP, Los Angeles, California, for the appellee.

Patrick J. Carome, Samir Jain, and C. Colin Rushing; Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, Washington, DC; for amici curiaeAmerica Online, Inc., eBay, Inc., the Internet Commerce Coalition, and the United States Internet Service Provider Association.Laura A. Heymann, America Online, Inc., Dulles, Virginia; Michael J. Richter and Tod Cohen, eBay, Inc., San Jose, California; James J. Halpert, Piper Rudnick, LLP, Washington, DC; and Stewart A. Baker, Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, DC, were also on the brief.

Deborah Pierce and Linda Ackerman, Privacyactivism, San Francisco, California, for amici curiae The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Gavin De Becker, Privacyactivism, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Dickran M. Tevrizian, District Judge, Presiding.D.C. No. CV-01-00018-DT.

Before THOMAS, PAEZ, Circuit Judges, and REED, District Judge.^*

THOMAS, Circuit Judge.

This is a case involving a cruel and sadistic identity theft.In this appeal, we consider to what extent a computer match making service may be legally responsible for false content in a dating profile provided by someone posing as another person.Under the circumstances presented by this case, we conclude that the service is statutorily immune pursuant to 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1).

I

Matchmaker.com is a commercial Internet dating service.For a fee, members of Matchmaker post anonymous profiles and may then view profiles of other members in their area, contacting them via electronic mail sent through the Matchmaker server.A typical profile contains one or more pictures of the subject, descriptive information such as age, appearance and interests, and answers to a variety of questions designed to evoke the subject's personality and reason for joining the service.

Members are required to complete a detailed questionnaire containing both multiple-choice and essay questions.In the initial portion of the questionnaire, members select answers to more than fifty questions from menus providing between four and nineteen options.Some of the potential multiple choice answers are innocuous; some are sexually suggestive.In the subsequent essay section, participants answer up to eighteen additional questions, including "anything that the questionnaire didn't cover."Matchmaker policies prohibit members from posting last names, addresses, phone numbers or e-mail addresses within a profile.Matchmaker reviews photos for impropriety before posting them but does not review the profiles themselves, relying instead upon participants to adhere to the service guidelines.

On October 23, 1999, an unknown person using a computer in Berlin posted a "trial" personal profile of Christianne Carafano in the Los Angeles section of Matchmaker.(New members were permitted to post "trial" profiles for a few weeks without paying.)The posting was without the knowledge, consent or permission of Carafano.The profile was listed under the identifier "Chase529."

Carafano is a popular actress.Under the stage name of Chase Masterson, Carafano has appeared in numerous films and television shows, such as "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," and "General Hospital."Pictures of the actress are widely available on the Internet, and the false Matchmaker profile "Chase529" contained several of these pictures.Along with fairly innocuous responses to questions about interests and appearance, the person posting the profile selected "Playboy/Playgirl" for "main source of current events" and "looking for a one-night stand" for "why did you call."In addition, the open-ended essay responses indicated that "Chase529" was looking for a "hard and dominant" man with "a strong sexual appetite" and that she"liked sort of be[]ing controlled by a man, in and out of bed."The profile text did not include a last name for "Chase" or indicate Carafano's real name, but it listed two of her movies (and, as mentioned, included pictures of the actress).

In response to a question about the "part of the LA area" in which she lived, the profile provided Carafano's home address.The profile included a contact e-mail address, cmla2000@yahoo.com, which, when contacted, produced an automatic e-mail reply stating, "You think you are the right one?Proof it!!"[sic], and providing Carafano's home address and telephone number.

Unaware of the improper posting, Carafano soon began to receive messages responding to the profile.Although she was traveling at the time, she checked her voicemail on October 31 and heard two sexually explicit messages.When she returned to her home on November 4, she found a highly threatening and sexually explicit fax that also threatened her son.Alarmed, she contacted the police the following day.As a result of the profile, she also received numerous phone calls, voicemail messages, written correspondence, and e-mail from fans through her professional e-mail account.Several men expressed concern that she had given out her address and phone number (but simultaneously expressed an interest in meeting her).Carafano felt unsafe in her home, and she and her son stayed in hotels or away from Los Angeles for several months.

Sometime around Saturday, November 6, Siouxzan Perry, who handled Carafano's professional website and much of her e-mail correspondence, first learned of the false profile through a message from "Jeff."Perry exchanged e-mails with Jeff, visited the Matchmaker site, and relayed information about the profile to Carafano.Acting on Carafano's instructions, Perry contacted Matchmaker and demanded that the profile be removed immediately.The Matchmaker employee indicated that she could not remove the profile immediately because Perry herself had not posted it, but the company blocked the profile from public view on Monday morning, November 8.At 4:00 AM the following morning, Matchmaker deleted the profile.

Carafano filed a complaint in California state court against Matchmaker and its corporate successors, alleging invasion of privacy, misappropriation of the right of publicity, defamation, and negligence.The defendants removed the case to federal district court.The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment in a published opinion.Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc.,207 F.Supp.2d 1055(C.D.Cal.2002).The court rejected Matchmaker's argument for immunity under 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) after finding that the company provided part of the profile content.Id. at 1067-68.However, the court rejected Carafano's invasion of privacy claim on the grounds that her home address was "newsworthy" and that, in any case, Matchmaker had not disclosed her address with reckless disregard for her privacy.Id. at 1069.Similarly, the court rejected Carafano's claims for defamation, negligence, and misappropriation because she failed to show that Matchmaker had acted with actual malice.Id. at 1073-76.

Carafano timely appealed.America Online, eBay, and two coalitions of online businesses intervened to challenge the district court's construction of § 230(c)(1).Several privacy advocacy groups and two organizations representing entertainers intervened in support of Carafano.

II

The dispositive question in this appeal is whether Carafano's claims are barred by 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1), which states that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."Through this provision, Congress granted most Internet services immunity from liability for publishing false or defamatory material so long as the information was provided by another party.As a result, Internet publishers are treated differently from corresponding publishers in print, television and radio.SeeBatzel v. Smith,333 F.3d 1018, 1026-27(9th Cir.2003).

Congress enacted this provision as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 for two basic policy reasons: to promote the free exchange of information and ideas over the Internet and to encourage voluntary monitoring for offensive or obscene material.Seeid. at 1026-30(recounting the legislative history and purposes of this section).Congress incorporated these ideas into the text of § 230 itself, expressly noting that "interactive computer services have flourished to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of government regulation," and that "[i]ncreasingly Americans are relying on interactive media for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services."47 U.S.C. § 230(a)(4), (5).Congress declared it the "policy of the United States" to "promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services,""to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services," and to "remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies."47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(1), (2), (4).

In light of these concerns, reviewing courts have treated § 230(c) immunity as quite robust, adopting a relatively expansive definition of "interactive computer service"¹ and a relatively restrictive definition of "information content provider."²Under the statutory scheme, an "interactive computer service" qualifies for...