My Space Not Liable for Sexual Assaults

Various girls aged 13 to 15 brought suit against MySpace Incorporated, the owner of the social networking site myspace.com, after they were sexually assaulted by men they met on the site. The cases were dismissed at the trial court level and consolidated for appeal. Plaintiffs argued that liability was premised on a breach of MySpace's legal duty to provide reasonable safety measures to ensure sexual predators did not gain otherwise unavailable access to minors through the myspace site, and contended the suit thus fell outside of the immunities granted by the Comunications Deceny Act ("CDA"). In a decision issued on June 30, 2009, a California Court of Appeal disagreed. The appellate court found that MySpace: 1) was an interactive computer services provider, 2) was not an information content provider as to the disputed activity, and 3) that plaintiffs were seeking to hold MySpace liable for information originating with a third party user of its services. As such, the Court held, MySpace was immune from liability under the CDA.