Tech Allies Back Yelp in Online Speech Case
Google, Facebook and other tech giants are urging the California Supreme Court to reverse a lower court that ordered Yelp to remove a negative review.
May 02, 2017 at 04:22 PM
20 minute read
SAN FRANCISCO — Tech industry giants—and a who's who of internet lawyers—have lined up behind review site Yelp Inc. as it fights a court order forcing the company to remove a negative review of a San Francisco personal injury attorney.
A stream of amicus briefs poured into the California Supreme Court on Monday from technology trade organizations and individual companies such as Google Inc. in Hassell v. Bird, a case considering whether a court can force a website publisher to remove third party-created content in instances where the website itself isn't a named party. Tech industry lawyers claim that if the ruling against Yelp stands it could create a path for creative lawyers to squelch online speech.
“Allowing injunctions to issue directly against nonparty service providers, and threatening them with contempt for failing to remove content, would make it perilous for intermediaries to resist even the most questionable court orders,” wrote David Kramer of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati on behalf of Google.
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