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June 23, 2006

Google Child Porn Lawsuit Withdrawn--Toback v. Google

By Eric Goldman

Sensing that his 15 minutes of fame was up, Jeffrey Toback has withdrawn his lawsuit against Google regarding Google's alleged facilitation of child pornography. This withdrawal is hardly surprising given the lawsuit's complete lack of merit. Nevertheless, I am a little disappointed that the lawsuit won't proceed--I was actually looking forward to the schadenfreude of a judge issuing an opinion ripping Toback to shreds. Fortunately, the blogosphere has been doing a pretty good job on that front. I think Alex E. hit the nail on the head when he crowned Toback "Dorkus Maximus." This is the kind of devastatingly accurate nickname that can become permanent.

But I'm still holding out hope that my schadenfreude desire will be satisfied. Election season is coming up, and I trust that Toback's constituents have learned some valuable insights about the "quality" of lawmaking that they are getting from him.

Posted by Eric at June 23, 2006 05:20 PM | Content Regulation , Derivative Liability , Search Engines