Pimping charges over escort ads could erode tech firms’ legal protection: experts
The CEO and owners of Backpage.com are accused of heinous crimes, but California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ indictment of the three men could lead to a major upheaval for some Silicon Valley tech companies, experts said Friday.
Backpage is an online marketplace that has been fighting authorities for years because it carries ads featuring escorts who pose provocatively and, authorities say, offer sex for sale. Now, Harris is arguing that selling those ads makes Backpage executives guilty of illegal acts, charging CEO Carl Ferrer, 55, and controlling shareholders Michael Lacey, 68, and James Larkin, 67, with pimping children under 16 and other felony offenses. Ferrer was arrested Thursday.
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Few in the tech industry were defending Backpage on Friday, but the principle at stake is a different matter, said David Greene, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A number of companies depend on the same argument Backpage makes — that they cannot be held liable for third-party content on their websites. Harris’ indictment rejects that notion, suggesting firms are responsible for that content even if they are not, Greene said, “actively working in concert with criminals.”
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Should the prosecution force Backpage to shut down, issues could arise for companies such as Twitter or Facebook, which unveiled its new Marketplace feature this week, experts said. Tech firms might see sex ads migrate onto their sites, said University of Santa Clara School of Law professor Eric Goldman.
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Authorities have successfully prosecuted cases against companies acting as intermediaries when the firms themselves were “involved in the deception or crime,” said UC Berkeley School of Information professor Chris Hoofnagle.
Investigators can look deeply into the company’s operations and communications to determine how much those controlling it knew about the content appearing on the site, Hoofnagle said.
“They inspect business records, communications with consumers, messaging to colleagues, and so on,” Hoofnagle said. “It’s not hard to pick apart what the company knows about users and their activities.”
quindi, non una esenzione di responsabilità ex ante, ma una valutazione caso per caso.
sarà un caso interessante..
