Communications Decency Act Summary

Communications Decency Act Summary

Update May 20th, 2013

If you are reading this and have something that was written about you online that you do not like. Please note that the CDA gives the written near immunity. We can still help you by replacing the unwanted press on the internet with positive and good stuff about you using our propertiery methods. Please call 202-709-6571 to learn more about our services and enjoy the overview of the communications decency act below:

The Communications Decency Act (CDA) was initially proposed by the United States Congress in 1995. Its purpose was to regulate pornographic and other obscene material that was circulating online and to uphold the illegality of posting defamatory remarks about individuals on the Internet.  It was part of a larger bill entitled the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Although the act fails to explicitly define what is considered indecent, it does state that defamatory and slanderous statements made on the Internet in reference to another are considered illegal. For example, say a popular blog makes an outrageous and untrue statement in regards to another individual or small business owner. The owner of that particular blog would be liable for their remarks in so long as they were fully aware that what they were posting was false. If the victim of the slanderous attacks could prove that the poster acted in a false or unjust matter they could sue the accuser in a court of law.

The act was also formulated to control and limit the amount of smear campaigns that appeared on the web. A common marketing tactic companies employ is to consciously post defamatory remarks about their rivals on the Internet in an effort to promote their own brand. The CDA states that these tactics are in fact illegal and victims of this type of slander are protected by law.

Section 230 of the CDA exempts Internet Service Providers from being liable for slanderous remarks made by their users. Unfortunately, the wording of the act itself remains quite vague. Subsequently, it has been difficult to determine exactly what constitutes a defamatory remark and what does not as the act is careful not to impede on the 1st Amendment.

So all in all you can not control what makes its way to the internet and the only way to solve these issues is not to try to litigate against your attacker but rather to take the more intelligent approach which is working with Profile Defenders to suppress the negative results and reviews off of the first page of search results with our help. Contact us today for a free quote.

0
Contact Us
X