The decision upholds an earlier ruling which said that Amazon.com was not liable to author Jerome Schneider for allegedly defamatory reviews of his books on tax avoidance which had been submitted to and posted on Amazon.com’s site by its customers.
In his appeal, Mr Schneider argued that Amazon.com had a decision making authority over the content of its site. He therefore alleged that by allowing the comments to be posted, the company had wrongfully interfered with his business expectancy, made negligent representations, and breached its contract with him.
The court ruled however that Amazon.com was protected under the CDA, as the Act states that an “interactive service provider” is not the “publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”.