Scenario in US

Cases

Stratton Oakmont, Inc. vs. Prodigy Services Company
Prodigy is an Internet service company which operates a network that millions of subscribers can communicate with each other and a number of bulletin boards. Among them is a popular financial bulletin board named "Money Talk". Though Prodigy hired managers and board leaders to monitor the content of publications in "Money Talk", Prodigy had held itself as like a newspaper that monitored and exercised editorial control over the content of the messages in their bulletin boards since its operations started in 1990.

That public expression created a problem in 1994, when Stratton Oakmont, Inc. found some allegedly defamatory statements in "Money Talk" and commenced legal action against Prodigy and the unidentified poster of the statements. The plaintiff perceived Prodigy as a publisher of the statements and the board leader of "Money Talk", who was responsible of monitoring the content, acted as Prodigy's agent.

The rule of court was not in favor of Prodigy. Though Prodigy argued that it was infeasible to review every 60,000 messages posted in their bulletin board everyday, the court indicated that even such review control cannot be complete, it did not minimize the fact that Prodigy did publicly arrogate itself to the role of determining what is proper to post and be read in its bulletin boards. Therefore, the court summarized Prodigy as a publisher rather than a distributor. Furthermore, the court affirmed that Prodigy had directed and controlled the actions of board leader, thus held that the board leader as an agent of Prodigy.

This case reflected the importance of editorial control over content for any ISP. Though Prodigy might have expressed itself as a responsible service provider with well-intentioned monitor policies, it was found guilty because of this same good intention. The role of the board leader created another concern: whether it is an independent contractor or an employee is significant to the ISP as well. These issues aroused much concern and eventually impelled the U.S. Congress to issue the CDA later in 1996 in order to protect the good faith of ISP and freedom of speech.