Opinion ID: 2197137
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The E-Mail Message

Text: We turn first to Lunney's claim stemming from the e-mail message. E-mail is the day's evolutionary hybrid of traditional telephone line communications and regular postal service mail. [3] As one commentator explained, [t]o transmit a message, one must have access to an on-line service's e-mail system and must know the recipient's personal e-mail address ( see, Luftman, Note, Defamation Liability for On-Line Services: The Sky is Not Falling, 65 Geo Wash L Rev 1071, 1081 [1997]). Once this is accomplished, a person may communicate by composing a message in the e-mail computer system and dispatching it telephonically (or through some other dedicated electronic line) to one or more recipients' electronic mailboxes. A recipient may forward the message or reply in like manner. Commercial on-line services, such as Prodigy, transmit the private e-mail messages but do not exercise any editorial control over them ( see, Luftman, op. cit. ). Because Lunney's defamation action is grounded in New York common law, we evaluate it in accordance with our established tort principles ( see, Foster v Churchill, 87 NY2d 744, 751-752; Liberman v Gelstein, 80 NY2d 429, 434). Although they were fashioned long before the advent of e-mail, these settled doctrines accommodate the technology comfortably, and with apt analogies ( see generally, Miranda, Defamation in Cyberspace: Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v Prodigy Services Co., 5 Alb L J Sci & Tech 229, 237 [1996]). In Anderson v New York Tel. Co ., this Court was asked to determine whether a telephone company could be held liable as a publisher of a scurrilous message that a third party recorded and made available to the public by inviting anyone interested to dial in and listen (35 NY2d 746, supra ). The Court adopted the opinion of Justice Witmer in his dissent at the Appellate Division, concluding that the telephone company could not be considered a publisher, because in no sense has    [it] participated in preparing the message, exercised any discretion or control over its communication, or in any way assumed responsibility (42 AD2d 151, 163). Anderson also holds that even if the telephone company could be counted as a publisher, it would be entitled to a qualified privilege subject to the common-law exception for malice or bad faith (42 AD2d, at 163-164). Anderson emphasized the distinction between a telegraph company (in which publication may be said to have occurred through the direct participation of agents) and a telephone company, which, as far as content is concerned, plays only a passive role. The Anderson doctrine parallels the case before us. Prodigy's role in transmitting e-mail is akin to that of a telephone company, which one neither wants nor expects to superintend the content of its subscribers' conversations. In this respect, an ISP, like a telephone company, is merely a conduit. Thus, we conclude that under the decisional law of this State, Prodigy was not a publisher of the e-mail transmitted through its system by a third party. Moreover, we are unwilling to deny Prodigy the common-law qualified privilege accorded to telephone and telegraph companies. The public would not be well served by compelling an ISP to examine and screen millions of e-mail communications, on pain of liability for defamation. Considering that in the case before us there is no basis upon which to defeat the qualified privilege, it should and does apply here.