[The Oregonian] A Portland woman who accuses Yahoo of letting an ex-boyfriend post nude photos of her online plans to go another round with the Internet service provider in federal court, her lawyer said Monday.
Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Portland court's ruling that Cecilia L. Barnes could not punish the company for the objectionable postings of others. The panel reaffirmed that Web providers are not liable for what users post.
But the appeals court remanded a portion of the case to Portland's U.S. District Court, opening the door for Barnes, 52, to renew her complaint against the company. She accuses Yahoo of allowing photos of her au naturel to linger for months -- in some of the most traveled corridors of cyberspace -- after promising to remove them.
"We're pleased that the court will allow us to move forward with at least part of the case," said Barnes' lawyer, Thomas R. Rask III, who said his client was horrified that the photos had been posted on the Internet. "Yahoo made a promise, then failed to keep the promise."
Yahoo does not comment on pending litigation.
The case began in 2004 when Barnes broke off a long relationship with her boyfriend. She accuses him of opening an unauthorized Yahoo account in her name and including photos of her in the nude, along with invitations for sex.
"The ex-boyfriend then conducted discussions in Yahoo's online 'chat rooms,' posing as Barnes and directing male correspondents to the fraudulent profiles he had created," Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain wrote in the court's opinion, published Thursday.
"The profiles also included the addresses, real and electronic, and telephone number at Barnes' place of employment," O'Scannlain wrote. "Before long, men whom Barnes did not know were peppering her office with e-mails, phone calls and personal visits, all in the expectation of sex."
Barnes got dozens of unwanted solicitations for sex from men who saw her profiles on Yahoo in early 2005, Rask said. She sent three letters to the company in early 2005 asking officials to remove the profiles under her name. But she got no response, her lawyer said.
Then in March 2005, as KGW (8) prepared to air a story on Barnes' situation, a reporter phoned Yahoo for comment. Mary Osako, a Yahoo spokeswoman, then phoned Barnes and promised to take down the profiles, Rask said. But many weeks passed with the photos posted on Yahoo's site.
Sixty-five days after Osako made her promise, Barnes filed a $3 million lawsuit against Yahoo.
"Within hours," Rask said, "it was taken down."
Last week's remand sends the question of whether Yahoo broke its promise -- or even made a promise -- back to the U.S. District Court in Portland.
Woman sues Yahoo over nude photos
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment