Yahoo Wins In Lawsuit Over Search Descriptions

Sep 9, 2009 at 12:20pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Eric Goldman updated us on a case where Yahoo was sued for showing spam and porn pages for a search on a person’s name. Beverly Stayart was upset that when you searched for her name on Yahoo, Yahoo returned some results that were not to her liking. So she sued Yahoo but the court wouldn’t have it.

Goldman explained that the court rejected her suit on three different levels. She sued Yahoo for Lanham Act false endorsement and it was denied by the court, as expected. The reason it was rejected? Goldman sums it up as follows:

The court denies Various’ 230 defense because its association with the banner ad was unclear. Having dismissed the federal Lanham Act claims completely, the court then declines supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. The court also rejects Stayart’s guffaw-inducing request for sanctions against the defendants for having the temerity of moving to dismiss her complaint.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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