In an online defamation action, Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, No. CV-07-0956-PHX-FJM, 2008 WL 565102 (D. Ariz. Feb. 28, 2008), the District Court of Arizona dismissed plaintiff Global Royalties, Ltd.’s amended complaint on the basis of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 states, “No 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.”

The defendants operate a website called Ripoff Report, located at www.ripoffreport.com, where visitors are invited and encouraged to post consumer complaints. A Ripoff Report visitor named Spencer Sullivan, who is not a party to this action, had posted three entries complaining about the plaintiff, a company that brokers investments in gemstones. Afterwards, Sullivan contacted the defendants and asked them to remove his entries, but the defendants refused to remove them.

The court held that, even if the defendants were on notice that the posts were potentially defamatory, Section 230 bars the defamation claim. “We conclude that liability based on an author’s notice, workable or not, is without statutory support and is contrary to well-settled precedent that the CDA is a complete bar to suit against a website operator for its exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions-such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone or alter content.” Xcentric Ventures, 2008 WL 565102 at *3. (citations omitted)

Interestingly, the court may have stated the law more broadly than it had intended. Instead of the Section 230 acting a complete bar to suit against website operators for exercising a publisher’s editorial functions, Section 230 has been held to be a complete bar to suit against website operators despite any editorial functions that they may exercise on content provided by third parties.

The plaintiff also attempted to argue that the defendants created and developed some of the content on the site by employing category tags with preset text. In order to post on the defendants’ site, visitors are required to select a category with which to label their complaint. Sullivan chose the category “Con Artists” from a list provided by defendants to label one of his posts. Plaintiff attempted to rely on Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 489 F.3d 921 (9th Cir.2007), reh’g granted, 506 F.3d 716 (9th Cir.2007), which based its holding partially on such structured inputs.

The court properly declined to give Roommates.com any consideration, as the 9th Circuit’s decision has been vacated and will be superseded by the forthcoming en banc opinion. The court also rejected plaintiff’s request to stay the case pending the en banc opinion, stating the following: “Believing that Fair Housing is analogous to this action, plaintiffs have filed a motion to stay until the Ninth Circuit issues its en banc opinion. We reject that suggestion. There is no reason for this action to remain on our docket until another court issues an opinion which may or may not be binding, or even persuasive, on these issues.”