Does the Wikimedia Foundation do this?

From the U.S. Code:
Does that sound like it describes the Wikimedia Foundation?

Sort of—the screen you see when logging in for the first time with a new account leads via a tortuous route through the FAQs to Wikipedia:Advice for parents, but I suspect most people never get that far. I agree the link to it should probably be included on that welcome screen, rather than buried in the FAQ section.

So what would be the consequence of not complying? The section doesn't seem to say. Maybe it could be argued that no immunity is available under the section if the requirement isn't met?

Death by hanging. Obviously.

Or deeply disappointed congresspersons.

About 64 people a day.

Thank you, Eva.

Wasn't that the part that was found unconstitutional?

Yes, you can't pass a law requiring burglars to wear bells, because that would be self-incriminating.

IANAB …

Jon

Maybe some of them are "new users". No doubt, some of them are merely new socks.

No the whole CDA except Sec. 230 was found unconstitutional. AFAIK no part of Sec 230 was found unconstitutional. Hard to imagine how requiring that service providers merely to tell people about filtering software would amount to an unconstitutional burden. No more of a burden than the common requirement that landlords tell tenants about the availability of legal services prior to eviction and less immediately against their interests.

Do you, Mr. Kohs, have evidence that WMF did not provide this information when it "enter[ ed] an agreement with a customer for the provision of interactive computer service"?

MZMcBride: the term "interactive computer service" basically covers every server on earth, especially as interpreted by case law ("any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server"). It's a notoriously broad term. The issue here is that WMF does not provision these services to customers.

Speaking for myself, its been a long time since I created my account and I just don't remember. I wasn't much interested in Sec. 230 at the time so I wouldn't have looked for compliance. Now it is possible that it has not been quite so long since Greg last created an account.

It's also been a while for me as well. But I'd bet the answer is a big "no".

A quick check at Google (a s.230 protected server chosen "at random") reveals the so-called "SafeSearch" stuff:

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bi...swer=35892#safe



Which services? The ones that s.230(d) says they are obligated to? Or are you arguing that because the WMF is not an ISP ("computer access", etc), they are not obligated to offer filtering advice or options at all?

Aha! The old "Wikipedia is only concerned with verifiability, not truth" catch.


So create another one. Nobody will notice if you never edit with it. And while you're at it make accounts on a few other sites like Commons, Meta, Wikinews and Simple to see what they say. Simple could be especially interesting.

No, Wikipedia is clearly an "interactive computer service," that's not the issue.

My point is that they don't seem to "provision" access to "customers." I don't believe it's reasonable to call the editors, let alone casual viewers "customers," and even if they were customers, it's not clear that one could prove that the obscure pages WMF maintains are not legitimate means "deemed appropriate by the provider."

This isn't a robust right. As far as I can tell, no reported case has ever dealt with it, although all sorts of websites (even static ones) have been found to be "interactive computer services."

One implication of the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 is that ISPs that don't offer filtering to their customers can be taxed by states. It seems disjointed where it is.

In fact, 230(d) was not in the CDA, but was added to the section in 1998 (two years later), with COPA, which also gave us Sec. 231. 112 Stat. 2681-739. COPA was not found to be constitutional either.

"Provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server" still sounds like an ISP, not a server, to me. It feels like a pretty big stretch to say that it applies to a Web site, but I'll defer to you.

Seems inconsistent to treat a website like a ISP for the purposes of immunity but then say they don't have "customers" so they are not subject to the filtering disclosure. Putting (d) into Sec 230 would seem to argue that those person downstream of a "provider of an interactive computer service" are the "customers" referred to here.

Could One explain further about state tax liability? I didn't follow that point.

Interactive computer services simply aren't ISPs. I think this is true from the plain broad meaning of the language, but it's especially true as interpreted. The term is a sort of catch-all.

"any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server"

Is Wikipedia an information service, system, or access software provider? Yes.
Does it enable computer access by multiple users? Yes.
To a computer server? Yes.

This is the analysis in Sec. 230 cases. Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Myspace--all of these have been found to be "interactive computer services."

That established, it's more than a little counter-intuitive to say that a server "enters into an agreement" with a passive browser. New user accounts seems more like an agreement (even with Wikipedia's lack of TOS), but I suspect that this is an academic question because "a manner deemed appropriate by the provider" is a pretty toothless requirement. There are literally no published orders about this, although plenty of non-ISP sites have been protected by sec. 230.

No problem. Subsection (d) was added to this section later--this is why early Sec. 230 decisions like Zeran refer to 230(d)(3) and so forth--that subsection is now at 230(e)(3).

I think its important to evaluate this subsection in context of statues passed contemporaneously--COPA and Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998.

The amendment for subsection (d) is actually part of COPA--section 1404. For this reason, maybe (d) is a dead letter to begin with, for the apparent unconstitutionality of at least part of COPA. However, like you I suspect that such a requirement would not be unconstitutional.

ITFA was passed within weeks of COPA at 112 Stat. 2681-719. The purpose of this bill was to forbid states from levying new taxes on internet access for three years. However, it provided a sort of ludicrous exception for parties that distribute harmful materials to minors (apparently they can be taxed(!?)), but then it says that ISPs are not excepted or covered by the moratorium on taxes "unless, at the time of entering into an agreement with a customer for the provision of Internet access services, such provider offers such customer (either for a fee or at no charge) screening software that is designed to permit the customer to limit access to material on the Internet that is harmful to minors."

This section uses different terms (and has vastly different definitions for those terms) than Sec. 230, but it's interesting to me that it contemplates "entering into an agreement" to "provision" services, as in Sec. 230. In this statute, they're clearly thinking about ISPs.

I interpret 230(d) as referring to ISPs, although 230's "safe harbor" immunity covers all "interactive computer services." I think it's most natural to interpret ISPs as the particular kind of "interactive computer service" that makes agreements to "provision" service.


All that said, this is obviously original research on my part. Before yesterday, I did not realize Sec. 230(d) was a subsequent addition.