Grindr Harassment Victim Asks: Are Tech Companies Immune From Product Liablity Laws? (nbcnews.com) 214
Why is Grindr being sued by Matthew Herrick, an aspiring actor working in a restaurant in New York? "His former partner created fake profiles on the app to impersonate Herrick and then direct men to show up at Herrick's home and the restaurant where he worked asking for sex, sometimes more than a dozen times per day."
But 14 police reports later, Herrick's lawsuit is now arguing that all tech companies should face greater accountability for what happens on their platforms, reports NBC News: His lawsuit alleges that the software developers who write code for Grindr have been negligent, producing an app that's defective in its design and that is "fundamentally unsafe" and "unreasonably dangerous" -- echoing language that's more typically used in lawsuits about, say, a faulty kitchen appliance or a defective car part. If successful, the lawsuit could bring about a significant legal change to the risks tech companies face for what happens on their platforms, adding to growing public and political pressure for change. "This is a case about a company abdicating responsibility for a dangerous product it released into the stream of commerce," his lawsuit argues, adding: "Grindr's inaction enables the weaponization of its products and services...."
In court, Grindr is relying on the more sweeping defense allowed by the 1996 law known as the Communications Decency Act. The act's Section 230 has been interpreted by courts to immunize internet services from liability for content posted online by third parties -- whether ex-boyfriends or otherwise. That immunity, though, is subject to a raging debate about whether social media companies and other tech firms should be so free to introduce products without much forethought about the hazards they could create.... Herrick's case has drawn interest from the tech industry, its supporters and its critics who see his lawsuit as a test for a possible new legal theory for holding tech firms to account.
"When you make a manufacturer effectively immune, it means that the consequences will be borne by the user," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. But should tech companies face product liability laws normally reserved for appliances? "As people have started to purchase more information-related items, we have to reconsider how we classify those things," argues Christopher Robinette, a law professor at Widener University.
If Herrick's suit is successful, NBC reports it "could reshape consumers' relationship with software, alter speech protections online and put pressure on Silicon Valley to find flaws in products before introducing them to the world." But what do Slashdot's readers think?
Should tech companies be immune from product liability laws?
But 14 police reports later, Herrick's lawsuit is now arguing that all tech companies should face greater accountability for what happens on their platforms, reports NBC News: His lawsuit alleges that the software developers who write code for Grindr have been negligent, producing an app that's defective in its design and that is "fundamentally unsafe" and "unreasonably dangerous" -- echoing language that's more typically used in lawsuits about, say, a faulty kitchen appliance or a defective car part. If successful, the lawsuit could bring about a significant legal change to the risks tech companies face for what happens on their platforms, adding to growing public and political pressure for change. "This is a case about a company abdicating responsibility for a dangerous product it released into the stream of commerce," his lawsuit argues, adding: "Grindr's inaction enables the weaponization of its products and services...."
In court, Grindr is relying on the more sweeping defense allowed by the 1996 law known as the Communications Decency Act. The act's Section 230 has been interpreted by courts to immunize internet services from liability for content posted online by third parties -- whether ex-boyfriends or otherwise. That immunity, though, is subject to a raging debate about whether social media companies and other tech firms should be so free to introduce products without much forethought about the hazards they could create.... Herrick's case has drawn interest from the tech industry, its supporters and its critics who see his lawsuit as a test for a possible new legal theory for holding tech firms to account.
"When you make a manufacturer effectively immune, it means that the consequences will be borne by the user," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. But should tech companies face product liability laws normally reserved for appliances? "As people have started to purchase more information-related items, we have to reconsider how we classify those things," argues Christopher Robinette, a law professor at Widener University.
If Herrick's suit is successful, NBC reports it "could reshape consumers' relationship with software, alter speech protections online and put pressure on Silicon Valley to find flaws in products before introducing them to the world." But what do Slashdot's readers think?
Should tech companies be immune from product liability laws?
Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand why the plaintiff is upset. But the person to be upset at is his harasser. There'd be no lawsuit if this was being done in the newspaper classified ads, or on a bulletin board. It wouldn't be possible to confirm that a picture sent in by someone over the internet is actually the sender. The correct person to sue is his harasser. Possibly even look into prosecution (I would be shocked if this didn't go into criminal harassment).
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Paper don't publish photos on classified ads. I think that makes a big difference. Also, local papers are much more likely to listen to take-down requests than tech companies.
I'm lost (Score:2)
What, exactly, does he want them to do?
Re:I'm lost (Score:5, Informative)
Plaintiff submitted numerous requests to Grindr, as king it to implement basic control over its product and to disable the impersonating a ccounts. Plaintiff filed this action because Grindr failed to respond to those requests.
End Quote
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Plaintiff submitted numerous requests to Grindr, as king it to implement basic control
Suit will get tossed on grounds he's impersonating as well - he's no king!
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> he's no king!
He's king in a country where there are "liablity" laws, perhaps.
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> he's no king!
Peasant 1: How do you know he's the king?
Peasant 2: He's the only one who doesn't have shit on him.
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I can't see how THAT could possibly end badly for all parties involved!
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No, I get that (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is what basic controls?
I get the whole thing about deactivating the fake accounts. Grindr being unwilling to move fast on that issue is a dick move on their part. I get the court order, and that seems like the right response to that part of it.
The whole point of Grindr seems to be anonymous hookups for gay dudes. Does he want to force them to de-anonymize everyone? Would he be satisfied with just being able to easily and quickly report the abusive accounts? Does he want to be able to issue DMCA takedown notices (one of his harms is copyright infringement, presumable over a profile photo)? The suit talks about using image recognition and prohibiting proxy use. That doesn't seem like what a court would call a "narrowly tailored" response.
I would hope that he could go to the police and file charges against the ex-boyfriend. If there are threats of violence (as described in the suit) the cops should be able to get a court order for access records looking for IP addresses. Maybe the cops don't take harassment claims among the gay community seriously in his jurisdiction?
Also, a huge part of the claims of the case is that Grindr's geo-location service is a central part of the problem. I don't see how that's part of the problem if the stalker guy is using fake accounts. Wouldn't the geo-location match the strangers to the stalker's phone? These guys are being directed to his home and workplace, though.
I get that the dude is upset. That makes perfect sense to me. It just seems like he's suing the deepest pocket rather than pursuing the source of the problem. Except for the bullshit about not closing the fake accounts, I don't see what he wants Grindr to do to prevent this from happening without negatively impacting all of the other users (and a quick google search says there's a lot of dudes using that service).
So, that was my question. Details, details.
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I see what you did there...
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Here's an idea, maybe if you don't want a bunch of gay men showing up for sex you shouldn't sign up for a gay sex solicitation network.
Silly AC, the plaintiff states that his ex signed up for the accounts fraudulently. Here's an idea, read the article before posting.
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Out of curiosity, what country are you referring to where paper's don't publish photos on classified ads? 'Cause in the 80's and 90's and even 00's before they died out, newspapers here in North America did publish photo's, they couldn't be vulgar or cross into obscene. And you absolutely paid out heavily in extra fees. And for around ~15 years or so, during the boom of ez-cheap printing, there were even magazines specially dedicated to it.
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Many papers post photos for classified ads, especially for houses, cars or expensive consumer goods. Many online contact services, such as LinkedIn, constantly complain if you refuse to submit a personal photograph. And many online services are quite welcoming of takedown requests. especially if they involve
child porn, commercial intellectual property, or even a hint of violating post-feminist ideology.
they all do.. (Score:2)
practically all newspapers publish photos on ads if you pay them money for doing it.
they might not publish a full color ad for "YO! I WANT SOME GAY SEX!" though - well, maybe a magazine for gay men looking for gay men would do that.
because hey. that's what the app is about anyways.
look, there's a lot of product liability that tech companies should have, like patching flaws in the software. those are product flaws, they should be fixed.
or when companies just decide to willy nilly _change_ the product withou
Re: Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:1)
Glad he broke up with mental guy, but thats the one everyone should be going after. The mental boyfriend should spend some time in jail or a large fine to help pondering if thats the best behavior.
If the 14 police reports isnt enough to do that the. It seems they need new policemen.
Grindr should be able to help here too but as for liability, its the same as a gun manufacturer.
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If he is actually mentally ill, it's hard to imagine jail or a large fine curing him. Unluckily it seems society has chosen to treat mental illness as criminal.
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Unluckily it seems society has chosen to treat mental illness as criminal.
That's because there's no other option. Back in the 60's through 80's, you had all of the progressive shrinks pushing to shut down mental hospitals. This was followed by numerous lawsuits which were won, claiming that MH facilities were simply centers for abuse, in turn must be shut down. Here in Canada, that meant tens-of-thousands dumped right onto the streets, in Ontario it was around 7k people simply dumped out the front door and that's that. The US? Similar case, because they were mandated to close
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The way i remember it, the shutdowns were all done in the name of austerity. Couldn't afford mental health and an easy thing to cut out of the budget.
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The way i remember it, the shutdowns were all done in the name of austerity. Couldn't afford mental health and an easy thing to cut out of the budget.
Nope. All started under the statements of patient rights, constitutional and so forth challenges and all the rest. It's probably one of the biggest abuses of the mentally ill. There is some validity about MH facilities being centers for abuse, especially up here in Canada where various provinces operated legal forced sterilization programs. Read the linked information, then go read about what actually happened, these same recommendations in Canada were used in the US including in precedent setting cases
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The claim that mental hospitals were shutdown as part of the Reagan government austerity program is one of the big lies of the left.
Its true that Reagan signed the OBRA, which repealed an act passed under Carter, but Carter was the president directly before Reagan, so we're to believe that in a mere decade the mental health system became so dependent on the federal teat that it could not exist without it.
The fact is that mental hospitals existed before Carter. While I'm sure they benefited from lots of free
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Software companies have had a "free out of jail" card for decades since they don't deliver a physical product.
Instead it's all in the fine print and the user has to bear the full responsibility and consequences even if they aren't at fault.
What it have to take is to make the whole US Senate to be caught with their pants down to update the legislation regarding product responsibility also for software and services.
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But he needs to think beyond his anger for a few minutes.
Mr Herrick is advocating if person A comes into the restaurant he works at, and harasses person B already there eating, that his place of employment is 100% responsible in the liability for not doing anything to prevent the restaurants service being used in that way.
How many lawsuits of the type Mr Herrick is desiring will it take to put that restaurant out of business?
What if the restaurant is used as a location to make a serious death threat? We cu
Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Informative)
But he needs to think beyond his anger for a few minutes.
Mr Herrick is advocating if person A comes into the restaurant he works at, and harasses person B already there eating, that his place of employment is 100% responsible in the liability for not doing anything to prevent the restaurants service being used in that way.
Typically, they are. If they ask the harasser to leave, or call the cops, then they have fulfilled the responsibility. If they simply watch Person B getting harassed then the restaurant is liable.
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>"Typically, they are. If they ask the harasser to leave, or call the cops, then they have fulfilled the responsibility. If they simply watch Person B getting harassed then the restaurant is liable."
Correct. Because extending the liability further than that will have a HUGE chilling effect on everything. And platforms will start insisting on more and more "verification" on who someone is- which will destroy the ability of anonymous or semi-anonymous participation on any platform and further increase tr
Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a written death threat towards person B by name, that is taped up on Mr Herricks front door?
Then he sues the manufacturer of the door, the company that made the paper and the green crayon used to write the threat, the company that made the tape, the makers of the varnish on the door which conspired to hold the note up, the builders who set the concrete floor he stood on while taping the note up and the Phoenicians for inventing the alphabet used to write the note.
There! Did I leave anyone out?
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Maybe something about how the owner of a road is / isn't responsible for how people operate vehicles on said road?
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If someone put up unreasonable speed limit signs on the road and the owner ignored those signs, I'd think they'd be liable.
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Bottom line: if someone hasn't done the bad "thing", let's not hold them responsible for doing the bad "thing". It's not fair.
Admitting liability might not reduce it :) (Score:3)
> If a company acknowledges potential liability ... I would imagine the company would be in a much stronger position to defend against claims.
When they say "never talk to the police", they mean you. You should never talk to cops if you are ever suspected of anything.
>Imagine a merchant who sells knives and the clerk explains to each customer how the knife can hurt them. Is that company likely to be liable for a knife injury? I seriously doubt it.
Plaintiffs attorney is going to ask, in as many
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You ever buy pesticides? Around here, they always warn you about the dangers and once they've warned you, you're liable, not them.
$289 liability to one guy (Score:2)
> once they've warned you, you're liable, not them.
Are you sure about that?
https://slashdot.org/story/344... [slashdot.org]
$289 MILLION liability to one user. Ugh (Score:2)
Slight difference between $289 and $289 million.
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Well, if the company fails to warn about the dangers, they'd be liable. The standard warning from the store clerk, IIRC, is along the lines of read the package and follow directions exactly and for many of those products, the directions include not getting it on your skin, in your eyes, don't ingest and wash afterwards. Pesticides like Safers Soap probably don't contain much in the way of warnings.
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You are partly very, very incorrect.
Instead it's all in the fine print and the user has to bear the full responsibility and consequences even if they aren't at fault.
That makes a giant, giant assumption that the person impacted is a current user of the service. If they aren't a user of the service, they haven't agreed to anything. (Even if the EULA is found to be enforceable, which is a whole different can of worms.) At that point, a company is doing harm to someone who has no contractual relationship with that company, and yeah, that's definitely grounds for a lawsuit.
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Regardless of case the company providing the service causing the harm should be seen as an cooperating in the crime and if they don't take action to prevent further criminal actions and support investigation then they shall be seen as equally guilty.
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Regardless of case the company providing the service causing the harm should be seen as an cooperating in the crime
Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
The correct person to sue is his harasser.
The correct way of doing it is to sue everyone. By suing the company, the company will do everything it can to point the finger at the original harasser.
In other words, by suing the company, the plaintiff is assuring the maximum cooperation of the company. And yes, the DA can get the cooperation of the company too, but the effectiveness of a DA is not always guaranteed.
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As long as the company is protecting the identify of his harasser from him, he can't very well sue anyone else, now can he?
Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
The correct person to sue is his harasser.
But there's no money in that.
Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
There'd be no lawsuit if this was being done in the newspaper classified ads, or on a bulletin board.
Completely agree in principle... but in practice what the internet changes is the speed and scale of the potential harm that can be done via a high-profile App where a malicious post can be created for free, in seconds, and can instantly reaches a global audience without any sort of human sanity checking. The perpetrator doesn't even need to get up off their bar stool or even interact with another human (which may not be infallible, but would put a severe damper on abuse and allow the publisher to impose their own rules and guidelines). You probably wouldn't get a dozen responses a day - continuing for weeks.
Regardless of the law, if a company is going to create - for profit - a new service, they should take some responsibility for the consequences. "Its only a dating App where people can post their photos and contact details with a strong implication that they're interested in more than just coffee - what could possibly go wrong?" is no longer a safe or realistic attitude. For a dating site not to have precautions in place (such as a compulsory "escrow" service for contacting partners and a credible mechanism for stopping people posting their locations) is grossly irresponsible. I have no idea if this applies to Grindr, but if they do make it easy to create a fake profile then they deserve what they get. Ultimately, you need a human in the loop to prevent abuse - and one of the reason some internet services are so wildly successful is that they're entirely automated.
Even on Slashdot, If I posted an obviously abusive message inviting people to someone's address for sex, it would quickly get modded to oblivion - and on several occasions I've told people who ask whether they can have a comments section on their website I've replied "sure, but who is going to volunteer to monitor it and deal with any problems?"
Going after the perpetrator is, of course, perfectly proper and important, but can only happen after the damage is done, and the world has an infinite supply of perpetrators to take the place of the ones you punish.
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Re:Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, there would be a lawsuit against the papers...
"...The alleged harassment continued for months, even after Herrick obtained a temporary restraining order against Grindr that required the company to disable the impersonating profiles."
Grindr was served and did nothing to stop the harassment. The same thing would happen to any newspaper who would continually take ads. And in both accounts the question would be asked...How were the ads being placed?
If it was on a computer or phone then the IP Address should have been flagged. The moment an ad was placed it should have been reviewed and given to law enforcement. Rather than continually publishing the ads as the article implies.
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There'd be no lawsuit if this was being done in the newspaper classified ads.
Of course it would and the editor of the newspaper would have to post a correction and make sure it doesn't happen again.
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Re: (Score:2)
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The correct person to sue is his harasser.
Where's the profit in that?
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Why did this Herrick become involved with this guy to start with? Bad judgement on Herrick's side. Or possibly a very unclean break up from Herrick's side. In any case, he only has himself to blame for the situation.
Reminds me about ex-couples who call each other morons after the fact. But who was the other moron who got involved with this moron to start with? What does it say about you, and your judgement and common sense, who started a relationship (and possibly even had kids) with this moron?
Re: Ridiculous lawsuit (Score:1)
The problem here is that grindr lets anyone create a profile and if they block the person they are copying then that person wonâ(TM)t even know it is happening to report the account. So really itâ(TM)s an issue of anonymity but perhaps if there were more ties to the person making the account this wouldnâ(TM)t be as prevalent and easier to do something about. Keep in mind that these services arenâ(TM)t great at protecting your privacy either. I believe Grindr itself could be abused to lea
Shooting the messenger? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is global, and any platform built on it is going to reach millions, if not billions, of people. If we pass laws that require companies to police their users, we will simply lose the platforms. Whatever happened to personal responsibility and liability? Why aren't the harassers arrested and charged? Why is Grindr the villain in this suit?
(I know there are people here who would love to see the more popular platforms disappear, but that's just petty jealousy and elitism talking.)
Re: Shooting the messenger? (Score:4)
Re: (Score:1)
Simple: This is below the level where law enforcement will become active. That means it is below the level where it is a serious disturbance. Hence the accusers here, who apparently have not yet learned that exposure to some amount of unpleasant people is a price to pay for freedom, are suing the company.
The thing is utterly stupid though: If they are successful, this app will probably just go away. They could have had the same thing much easier by simply not using it.
Re: Shooting the messenger? (Score:5, Informative)
"They could have had the same thing much easier by simply not using it."
Wow, you have serious reading comprehension failure.
This was not their account. They were impersonated by someone else.
You'd probsbly be upset if an acquaintance got photos off you From Facebook and impersonated you on Grindr and sent people to your house looking for sex. Or if you don't have Facebook, someone could simply take photos of you on their phone and then do it. All without you having to have used Grindr, or even know what it is.
Re: (Score:1)
You must be new here. Who reads the original articles on /.?
Seriously, though, if that is what happened, then this is a case for direct law enforcement, not a lawsuit. At least in Europe it would be.
Re: Shooting the messenger? (Score:1)
These details were in the summary.
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These details were in the summary.
This is slashdot. We don't read the summary. We read (at most) the first three words of the headline then get angry about it.
Re: Shooting the messenger? (Score:2)
Uh, yes, I do know how grindr works, probably much better than you do. It's perfectly possible to have a fake profile and a fake GPS location (I did this regularly).
Re:Shooting the messenger? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet is global, and any platform built on it is going to reach millions, if not billions, of people. If we pass laws that require companies to police their users, we will simply lose the platforms.
They are all already policing their platforms for legal but undesirable content. They should simply extend this policy to illegal content, AKA follow takedown requests.
The victim in this case should have issued a DMCA takedown request for his photos on Grindr, because then they have to take it down immediately with no questions asked. Any new account that then gets created with those photos results in Grindr legally on the hook.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility and liability? Why aren't the harassers arrested and charged?
Well, Grindr isn't getting arrested and charged, so I don't know what point you're trying to make.
Why is Grindr the villain in this suit?
(I know there are people here who would love to see the more popular platforms disappear, but that's just petty jealousy and elitism talking.)
Grindr being a villain in this suit does not make the harasser a non-villain. Both of them are villains in this suit but Grindr is advertising sexual services of someone who doesn't want to provide these services. This suit is to make them stop that.
How would you react if someone posted a full-page ad in the newspaper (running for the next 6 months) advertising your photo, name, address, workplace and phonenumber for sexual services, and the paper refused to cancel the ad after you drew attention to it?
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Why is Grindr the villain in this suit?
Nobody's expecting Grindr to pre-verify content. But once it's established once that someone is trying to fraudulently send people to have sex with [name] who lives at [address] and works at [workplace] they have choices. Think of it like YouTube and their video content filter, formally they only have to take down the URL if anybody asks. They don't have to keep a MD5 sum of the content. They don't have to create video and audio "fingerprints" looking for similar content. They don't have to offer tools for
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So, how has it been established?
One guy said "yes", the other said "no". Okay, who's telling the truth? The guy saying "yes" or the guy saying "no"?
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If you had clicked into the story, you'd find that this has already gone before the courts, and they issued a temporary restraining order against Grindr, which Grindr subsequently ignored. Thus the lawsuit. Pretty clear who's in the wrong, eh?
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If YOU had clicked into the dismissal document [courtlistener.com] linked from the story, you would know that the temporary restraining order was issued by the state court, but then the case was moved to federal court where they denied the motion to extend the restraining order and ended up dismissing the lawsuit. I don't see anywhere in the article where it alleges that Grindr did not comply with the temporary restraining order for the 3 weeks that it was in force, can you please point that out to me? The only sentence in t
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So in your world, when someone gets a restraining order and harassment continues from them, that's not evidence of their not complying with it? You live in a strange world. In my world, when you're told not to do something but you keep doing it, that's not complying.
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You say "the harassment continues from them" but the harassment wasn't coming from Grindr, the harassment was coming from his ex. By law, Grindr is not responsible for content posted by users to their service. That is what the federal court found, which is why they refused to extend the restraining order and why they dismissed the case.
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FB, Google, etc. make enough cash to hire humans to be involved. They don't want to, as that might hurt their 800 billion valuations. But it seems reasonable to me that if you have a platform that can reach billions, you have to hire people to curate it.
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The Internet is global, and any platform built on it is going to reach millions, if not billions, of people. If we pass laws that require companies to police their users, we will simply lose the platforms. Whatever happened to personal responsibility and liability? Why aren't the harassers arrested and charged? Why is Grindr the villain in this suit?
(I know there are people here who would love to see the more popular platforms disappear, but that's just petty jealousy and elitism talking.)
Grindr as a service provider could have designed a system that required identity verification of users before they are allowed to use the service.
Some users may balk at this requirement, but that's irrelevant.
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Emphasis mine. Had Grindr simply flagged and disabled the harassing profiles, this case wouldn't exist.
Spout your open source screed somewhere it applies.
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grindr is the one providing the service, they like making money, they can deal with the bullshit.
Nothing new here... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is on the bottom of things to be upset about on the internet.
This is standard harassment, covered by a multitude of laws in every state, and federally.
--
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. -- Bill Gates
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But when it's internationally it's going to take so long for it to be investigated that the statute of limitation will kill it before it's coming to court. It may even happen on federal level as it's often not considered to be a prioritized issue.
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But when it's internationally it's going to take so long for it to be investigated that the statute of limitation will kill it before it's coming to court. It may even happen on federal level as it's often not considered to be a prioritized issue.
Statute of limitations usually doesn't work if the case is being investigated, and definitely not if it is an ongoing matter. The idea is that it is unfair if you are accused ten years after something happened and you have no idea how to defend yourself; that doesn't apply if you have been harassing someone for years.
Kitchen knives (Score:1)
Should a manufacturer of kitchen knives be immune for the use of such knives by terrorists?
WHat about the plants who produced the steel the knives are made from?
Of the farmer, who produced the food the steelworkers ate?
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Should a manufacturer of kitchen knives be immune for the use of such knives by terrorists?
If they're knowingly sell them to someone intending to cause harm with the knife then yes they are on the hook. Grindr in this case had a restraining order against them so they certainly knew.
Harassment is not a product defect (Score:1)
It is a people defect and the company making the product does not make the people.
This is about as silly as suing the phone company for harassment phone calls, just transferred to the Internet.
I do realize the whole thing is a problem, but the only ways known to the human race to fix these people are far, far worse than these people. Hence some amount of unpleasant folks has to be tolerated. If they get extreme (credible death threats, stalking, swatting, etc.) law enforcement usually can do something thoug
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Even the phone company has a duty to act when it is informed of harassment and the person being harassed gets a restraining order. Just bring a carrier doesn't mean you can ignore such use of your network no matter what.
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Even the phone company has a duty to act when it is informed of harassment and the person being harassed gets a restraining order. Just bring a carrier doesn't mean you can ignore such use of your network no matter what.
A phone company won't disconnect the harasser, in many cases they won't block the person from contacting you either. But they may for a small fee(bell canada used to be $1.50/mo) record call attempts from the number and automatically forward them to the police force/service of your choice, in turn this would be a breach of a restraining/no-contact order, and allow further actions to be taken including arresting the person. In today's world, I can get a new phone number every 30 seconds from the variety of
Everything can be abused (Score:1)
So either we turn off everything, Or we punish the ones doing the abusing....
And that's why we have laws (Score:2)
Most laws are there to prevent abuse. We do hold people responsible if they sell alcohol to minors or sell guns without a license. When there's a problem that is deemed serious enough, an exploit that is dangerous enough, we have laws to take care of that.
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No (Score:1)
No, they should not be immune from product liability laws. Yes, they should be immune from user missuse.
They should pay through the nose for the data leak last year as this is a failure of a product. Similar all the other services and software vendors which fail at data security at even basic levels.
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They should? Even if the misuse is due to deliberate or negligent ignorance of flaws in their product or service?
Bad practive on all sides. (Score:3)
There should have been no need to get a restraining order to remvoe the profiles. (why yes I did read (scan) the article).
Yes grinder should do more, but only on the logical side. Steps says like.
1. User reports abuse of him on a profile he did not set up.
2. User p[rooves they are who they say they are (photo id and webcam you know like many sites ask for).
3. They either delete the profile or reset the password and let the real user do it.
4. They make sure no accounts pertaining to this person can be set up without authority from the real user.
Yes some of these will require extra effort but it is something that needs to be done to stop wasting police and court times with things that should be resolvable without their need.
Yes for continued action maybe a restraining order on the actual creator of these polive profiles is a good idea. However if setting the profiles was slightly harder then many would not bother. Yes the idiot is wholely responsible for the harasement, but Grindr is also criminal in action by allowing it to go on multiple times and requireing more than simple proof you are who you are to take it down and stop it happening again.
Hiding behind a law to stop you doing simple things is disgusting. But we get back to the old palce of apparently needing special laws for the internet. No we do not. Being on the internet does not make something new. And this was not the indented outcome of the law anyway. Just argued by corrupt lawers becuase the internet is confusing to us and let's hold it up on a pedastel as something different so we can make money a second time.
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Hiding behind a law to stop you doing simple things is disgusting.
I concur completely. Shouldn't take a competent developer long to design a blacklist system for names, addresses, and photos, so they can't be used in accounts. Also shouldn't take a competent developer long to come up with a way to authenticate requests to add data to that blacklist, and remove data. And it sure would take less money than the lawyers will take battling to not do this in court, and would prevent future suits, win or lose this one.
The utter stupidity will be if and when they lose this that t
Only if the Medium was Reasonably Negligent (Score:1)
If a person throws a rock at another person and injures them, the rock is not sued, the person who throws the rock is sued. If a third person had fabricated the rock, let's say out of concrete, then that third person is not liable, because, for one thing, they have no reasonable way to prevent the main offending party from throwing the rock.
For example, suppose a person were walking up some steps and slipped and injured themselves. It turns out, it was icey, and the person who owns the steps did not put sal
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps by honoring the court ordered restraining order against Grindr that required the company to disable the impersonating profiles? Not doing so is what ya call being "reasonably negligent".
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If a person throws a rock at another person and injures them, the rock is not sued, the person who throws the rock is sued.
That's a silly analogy because it's not analogous.
Let's say a court tells me that person A keeps throwing rocks at you and I should stop giving them rocks. I give more rocks to person A anyway and he predictably throws them at your head.
Do you have grounds to sue me? Yeah at that poinr probably you do.
It's not the software, it's the service (Score:3)
I don't think that Grindr should be held accountable for defects in the software, but it should be made accountable for running a service which enabled the harassment and not coming to the person's aid.
It's perfectly fine to have bugs and design flaws, it's something that happens because developers are humans and prone to make mistakes and not think of all consequences. A developer shouldn't be held legally responsible for a bug. However, a social service shouldn't be exempt from consequences. Law enforcement should be given a means to enforce laws on a social network.
Suggestion to help with the problem (Score:2)
Yes ... (Score:2)
... and Grindr is immune to product liability by way of data breach.
The best way to win is to not play.
remove anonymity (Score:2)
Remove anonymity from the internet and make all actions auditable.
If you know you will be caught for being a tool, maybe you'll think twice about being a tool.
obCasablanca (Score:2)
Defective or dangerous... (Score:1)
No. But you've got the wrong target. (Score:2)
They want a product that lets users upload information seen by others? And they want it to be immune from people being assholes? Sorry, those two things are mutually exclusive.
The party at fault is the crazy ex. Sue him and get your damages. Possibly lock him up for fraud, maybe personal identity theft. If you think "Well there's no way the courts will do anything to an ex-lover being an asshole", then the problem is with the courts, not the tech.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you really read TFA? He didn't use the app but his ex did by impersonating him. Also, there are other things happening afterward before it led to the law suit (read TFA). Typical ./er who either doesn't read or pick and choose only a portion in the summary to whine about.