Court Opinion

ID: 9567661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:56:29.357092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:39.522708
License: Public Domain

McKEOWN, Circuit Judge, with whom RYMER and BEA, Circuit Judges, join,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The ubiquity of the Internet is undisputed. With more than 1.3 billion Internet users and over 158 million websites in existence,1 a vast number of them interactive like Google, Yahoo!, Craigslist, MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook, the question of webhost liability is a significant one. On a daily basis, we rely on the tools of cyberspace to help us make, maintain, and rekindle friendships; find places to live, work, eat, and travel; exchange views on topics ranging from terrorism to patriotism; and enlighten ourselves on subjects from “aardvarks to Zoroastrianism.”2
The majority’s unprecedented expansion of liability for Internet service providers threatens to chill the robust development of the Internet that Congress envisioned. The majority condemns Roommate’s “search system,” a function that is the heart of interactive service providers. My concern is not an empty Chicken Little “sky is falling” alert. By exposing every interactive service provider to liability for sorting, searching, and utilizing the all too familiar drop-down menus, the majority has dramatically altered the landscape of Internet liability. Instead of the “robust”3 immunity envisioned by Congress, interactive service providers are left scratching their heads and wondering where immunity ends and liability begins.
To promote the unfettered development of the Internet, Congress adopted the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“CDA”), which provides that interactive computer service providers will not be held legally responsible for publishing information provided by third parties. 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1). Even though traditional publishers retain liability for performing essentially equivalent acts in the “non-virtual world,” Congress chose to treat interactive service providers differently by immunizing them from liability stemming from sorting, searching, and publishing third-party information. As we explained in Batzel v. Smith:
[Section] 230(c)(l)[ ] overrides the traditional treatment of publishers, distributors, and speakers under statutory and common law. As a matter of policy, “Congress decided not to treat providers of interactive computer services like other information providers such as newspapers, magazines or television and radio stations.... ” Congress ... has chosen to treat cyberspace differently.
333 F.3d 1018, 1026-1027 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F.Supp. 44, 49 (D.D.C.1998) (footnote omitted)).
Now, with the stroke of a pen or, more accurately, a few strokes of the keyboard, the majority upends the settled view that interactive service providers enjoy broad immunity when publishing information provided by third parties. Instead, inter*1177active service providers are now joined at the hip with third-party users, and they rise and fall together in liability for Internet sortings and postings.
To be sure, the statute, which was adopted just as the Internet was beginning a surge of popular currency,4 is not a perfect match against today’s technology. The Web 2.0 version is a far cry from web technology in the mid-1990s. Nonetheless, the basic message from Congress has retained its traction, and there should be a high bar to liability for organizing and searching third-party information. The bipartisan view in Congress was that the Internet, as a new form of communication, should not be impeded by the transference of regulations and principles developed from traditional modes of communication. The majority repeatedly harps that if something is prohibited in the physical world, Congress could not have intended it to be legal in cyberspace. Yet that is precisely the path Congress took with the CDA: the anomaly that a webhost may be immunized for conducting activities in cyberspace that would traditionally be cause for liability is exactly what Congress intended by enacting the CDA.
In the end, the majority offers interactive computer service providers no bright lines and little comfort in finding a home within § 230(c)(1). The result in this case is driven by the distaste for housing discrimination, a laudable endgame were housing the real focus of this appeal. But it is not. I share the majority’s view that housing discrimination is a troubling issue. Nevertheless, we should be looking at the housing issue through the lens of the Internet, not from the perspective of traditional publisher liability. Whether § 230(c)(1) trumps the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) is a policy decision for Congress, not us. Congress has spoken: third-party content on the Internet should not be burdened with the traditional legal framework.
I respectfully part company with the majority as to Part 25 of the opinion because the majority has misconstrued the statutory protection under the CDA for Roommate’s publishing and sorting of user profiles. The plain language and structure of the CDA unambiguously demonstrate that Congress intended these activities— the collection, organizing, analyzing, searching, and transmitting of third-party content — to be beyond the scope of traditional publisher liability. The majority’s decision, which sets us apart from five circuits, contravenes congressional intent and violates the spirit and serendipity of the Internet.
Specifically, the majority’s analysis is flawed for three reasons: (1) the opinion conflates the questions of liability under the FHA and immunity under the CDA; (2) the majority rewrites the statute with its definition of “information content provider,” labels the search function “information development,” and strips interactive service providers of immunity; and (3) the majority’s approach undermines the pur*1178pose of § 230(c)(1) and has far-reaching practical consequences in the Internet world.
To begin, it is important to recognize what this appeal is not about. At this stage, there has been no determination of liability under the FHA, nor has there been any determination that the questions, answers or even the existence of Roommate’s website violate the FHA. The FHA is a complicated statute and there may well be room for potential roommates to select who they want to live with, e.g., a tidy accountant wanting a tidy professional roommate, a collegiate male requesting a male roommate, an observant Jew needing a house with a kosher kitchen, or a devout, single, religious female preferring not to have a male housemate. It also bears noting that even if Roommate is immune under the CDA, the issue of user liability for allegedly discriminatory preferences is a separate question. See Zeran v. Am. Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997) (stating that “the original culpable party” does not “escape accountability”).
By offering up inflammatory examples, the majority’s opinion screams “discrimination.” The hazard is, of course, that the question of discrimination has not yet been litigated. In dissenting, I do not condone housing discrimination or endorse unlawful discriminatory roommate selection practices; I simply underscore that the merits of the FHA claim are not before us. However, one would not divine this posture from the majority’s opinion, which is infused with condemnation of Roommate’s users’ practices. To mix and match, as does the majority, the alleged unlawfulness of the information with the question of webhost immunity is to rewrite the statute.
Examples from the opinion highlight that the majority’s conclusion rests on the premise that Roommate’s questions and matching function violate the FHA:
• “Unlawful questions solicit (a.k.a. ‘develop’) unlawful answers.” Maj. Op. at 1166.
• “If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face or by telephone, they don’t magically become lawful when asked electronically online.” Id. at 1164.
• “If such screening is prohibited when practiced in person or by telephone, we see no reason why Congress would have wanted to make it lawful to profit from it online.” Id. at 1167.
• “Roommate’s search function thus differs materially from generic search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live Search, in that Roommate designed its system to use allegedly unlawful criteria so as to limit the results of each search, and to force users to participate in its discriminatory process.” Id.
• “By contrast, ordinary search engines do not use unlawful criteria to limit the scope of searches conducted on them, nor are they designed to achieve illegal ends — as Roommate’s search function is alleged to do here.” Id.
• “Roommate’s website is designed to force subscribers to divulge protected characteristics and discriminatory preferences.” Id. at 1172.
The entire opinion links Roommate’s ostensibly reprehensible conduct (and that of its users) with an unprecedented interpretation of the CDA’s immunity provision. The majority condemns Roommate for soliciting illegal content, but there has been no determination that Roommate’s questions or standardized answers are illegal. Instead of foreshadowing a ruling on the FHA, the opinion should be confined to the issue before us — application of § 230(c)(1) to Roommate. The district court has not yet ruled on the merits of the FHA claim and neither should we.
*1179The Statute
With this background in mind, I first turn to the text of the statute. Section 230 begins with a detailed recitation of findings and policy reasons for the statute. Congress expressly found that the “Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity,” and that “[ijncreasingly Americans are relying on interactive media for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(a)(3), (5). Congress declared that “[i]t is the policy of the United States to ... promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media.” § 230(b)(1).6
Unlike some statutes, subsections (a) and (b) set out in clear terms the congressional findings and policies underlying the statute. For this reason, it strikes me as odd that the majority begins, not with the statute and these express findings, but with legislative history. Granted, Congress was prompted by several cases, particularly the Prodigy case, to take action to protect interactive service providers. See Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Servs. Co., 1995 WL 323710, 1995 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 229 (N.Y.Sup.Ct. May 24, 1995). But that case does not cabin the scope of the statute, and the background leading up to enactment of the CDA is no substitute for the language of the statute itself. See Chicago Lawyers’ Comm. for Civil Rights Under the Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 519 F.3d 666, 671 (7th Cir.2008) (concluding that, as enacted, “Section 230(c)(1) is general[,]” despite its “genesis” in Prodigy).
Section 230(c), the heart of this case, is entitled “Protection for ‘good Samaritan’ blocking and screening of offensive material.]” The substantive language of the statute itself is not so limited. Section 230(c)(1) provides:
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
§ 230(c)(1). Since it was first addressed in 1997 in Zeran, this section has been interpreted by the courts as providing webhost “immunity,” although to be more precise, it provides a safe haven for interactive computer service providers by removing them from the traditional liabilities attached to speakers and publishers.7 See Zeran, 129 F.3d at 330 (“By its plain language, § 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.”).
We have characterized this immunity under § 230(c)(1) as “quite robust.” Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1123. Five of our sister circuits have similarly embraced this robust view of immunity by providing differential treatment to interactive service providers. Chicago Lawyers’ Comm, for Civil Rights Under the Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 519 F.3d 666, 670-71 (7th Cir.2008); Universal Commc’n Sys. v. Lycos, Inc., *1180478 F.3d 413, 415 (1st Cir.2007); Green v. Am. Online, 318 F.3d 465, 470 (3d Cir. 2003); Ben Ezra, Weinstein, & Co., Inc. v. Am. Online Inc., 206 F.3d 980, 986 (10th Cir.2000); Zeran, 129 F.3d at 330; see also Whitney Info. Network, Inc. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, No. 2:04-cv-47-FtM-34SPC, 2008 WL 450095, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11632 (M.D.Fla. Feb. 15, 2008); Doe v. MySpace, Inc., 474 F.Supp.2d 843, 849 (W.D.Tex.2007); Corbis Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 351 F.Supp.2d 1090, 1118 (W.D.Wash.2004); Blumenthal, 992 F.Supp. at 50-53; Barrett v. Rosenthal, 40 Cal.4th 33, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55, 146 P.3d 510, 529 (2006); Gentry v. eBay, Inc., 99 Cal. App.4th 816, 121 Cal.Rptr.2d 703, 717-18 (2002); Schneider v. Amazon.com, Inc., 108 Wash.App. 454, 31 P.3d 37, 42-43 (2001).
Key to this immunity provision are the terms “interactive computer service” provider and “information content provider.” The CDA defines an “interactive computer service” as any “information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables, computer access by multiple users to a computer server.” § 230(f)(2). An interactive computer service provider is not liable as a “publisher” or “speaker” of information if the “information” is “provided by another information content provider.” § 230(c)(1). The statute then defines an “information content provider” as a “person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.” § 230(f)(3). If the provider of an interactive computer service is an information content provider of the information at issue, it cannot claim immunity as a publisher or speaker. Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1123.
Courts deciding the question of § 230(c)(1) immunity “do not write on a blank slate.” Universal Commc’n, 478 F.3d at 418. Even though rapid developments in technology have made webhosts increasingly adept at searching and displaying third-party information, reviewing courts have, in the twelve years since the CDA’s enactment, “adopt[ed] a relatively expansive definition of ‘interactive computer service’ and a relatively restrictive definition of ‘information content provider.’ ” See Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1123 (footnotes omitted). As long as information is provided by a third party, webhosts are immune from liability for publishing “ads for housing, auctions of paintings that may have been stolen by Nazis, biting comments about steroids in baseball, efforts to verify the truth of politicians’ promises, and everything else that third parties may post on a web site.” Craigslist, 519 F.3d at 671. We have underscored that this broad grant of webhost immunity gives effect to Congress’s stated goals “to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services” and “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services.” Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1123 (discussing § 230(b)(1), (2)).
Application of § 230(c)(1) to Roommate’s Website
Because our focus is on the term “information content provider,” and what it means to create or develop information, it is worth detailing exactly how the website operates, what information is at issue and who provides it. The roommate matching process involves three categories of data: About Me or Household Description; Roommate Preferences; and Comments.
To become a member of Roommates.com, a user must complete a personal profile by selecting answers from drop-down menus or checking off boxes on the screen. The profile includes “location” in*1181formation (e.g., city and state, region of the city, and data about the surrounding neighborhood); details about the residence (e.g., the total number of bedrooms and bathrooms in the home, and amenities such as air conditioning, wheelchair access, high-speed Internet, or parking), and the “rental details” (e.g., monthly rent charged, lease period, and availability). The last section of the profile is the “Household Description” section,8 which includes the total number of occupants in the home, their age range, gender, occupation, level of cleanliness, whether they are smokers, and whether children or pets are present.
The remaining sections of the registration process are completely optional; a user who skips them has created a profile based on the information already provided. At his option, the user may select an emoticon to describe the “household character,” and may upload images of the room or residence. Next, users may, at their option, specify characteristics desired in a potential roommate, such as a preferred age range, gender, and level of cleanliness. If nothing is selected, all options are included.9 The final step in the registration process, which is also optional, is the “Comments” section, in which users are presented with a blank text box in which they may write whatever they like, to be published with their member profiles.
Users may choose an optional “custom search” of user profiles based on criteria that they specify, like the amount of monthly rent or distance from a preferred city. Based on the information provided by users during the registration process, Roommate’s automated system then searches and matches potential roommates. Roommate’s Terms of Service provide in part, “You understand that we do not provide the information on the site and that all publicly posted or privately transmitted information, data, text, photographs, graphics, messages, or other materials (‘Content’) are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated.”
Roommate’s users are “information content providers” because they are responsible for creating the information in their user profiles and, at their option- — -not the website’s choice — in expressing preferences as to roommate characteristics. § 230(f)(3). The critical question is whether Roommate is itself an “information content provider,” such that it cannot claim that the information at issue was “provided *1182by another information content provider.” A close reading of the statute leads to the conclusion that Roommate is not an information content provider for two reasons: (1) providing a drop-down menu does not constitute “creating” or “developing” information; and (2) the structure and text of the statute make plain that Congress intended to immunize Roommate’s sorting, displaying, and transmitting of third-party information.
Roommate neither “creates” nor “develops” the information that is challenged by the Councils, i.e., the information provided by the users as to their protected characteristics and the preferences expressed as to roommate characteristics. All Roommate does is to provide a form with options for standardized answers. Listing categories such as geographic location, cleanliness, gender and number of occupants, and transmitting to users profiles of other users whose expressed information matches their expressed preferences, can hardly be said to be creating or developing information. Even adding standardized options does not “develop” information. Roommate, with its prompts, is merely “selecting material for publication,” which we have stated does not constitute the “development” of information. Batzel, 333 F.3d at 1031. The profile is created solely by the user, not the provider of the interactive website. Indeed, without user participation, there is no information at all. The drop-down menu is simply a precategorization of user information before the electronic sorting and displaying that takes place via an algorithm. If a user has identified herself as a non-smoker and another has expressed a preference for a non-smoking roommate, Roommate’s sorting and matching of user information are no different than that performed by a generic search engine.
Displaying the prompt “Gender” and offering the list of choices, “Straight male; Gay male; Straight female; Gay female” does not develop the information, “I am a Gay male.” The user has identified himself as such and provided that information to Roommate to publish. Thus, the user is the sole creator of that information; no “development” has occurred. In the same vein, presenting the user with a “Preferences” section and drop-down menus of options does not “develop” a user’s preference for a non-smoking roommate. As we stated in Carafano, the “actual profile'information’ consistís] of the particular options chosen” by the user, such that Roommate is not “responsible, even in part, for associating certain multiple choice responses with a set of [] characteristics.” 339 F.3d at 1124.
The thrust of the majority’s proclamation that Roommate is “developing” the information that it publishes, sorts, and transmits is as follows: “[W]e interpret the term ‘development’ as referring not merely to augmenting the content generally, but to materially contributing to its unlawfulness.” Maj. Op. at 1168. This definition is original to say the least and springs forth untethered to anything in the statute.
The majority’s definition of “development” epitomizes its consistent collapse of substantive liability with the issue of immunity. Where in the statute does Congress say anything about unlawfulness? Whether Roommate is entitled to immunity for publishing and sorting profiles is wholly distinct from whether Roommate may be liable for violations of the FHA. Immunity has meaning only when there is something to be immune from, whether a disease or the violation of a law. It would be nonsense to claim to be immune only from the innocuous. But the majority’s immunity analysis is built on substantive liability: to the majority, CD A immunity depends on whether a webhost materially *1183contributed to the unlawfulness of the information. Whether the information at issue is unlawful and whether the webhost has contributed to its unlawfulness are issues analytically independent of the determination of immunity. Grasping at straws to distinguish Roommate from other interactive websites such as Google and Yahoo!, the majority repeatedly gestures to Roommate’s potential substantive liability as sufficient reason to disturb its immunity. But our task is to determine whether the question of substantive liability may be reached in the first place.
Keep in mind that “unlawfulness” would include not only purported statutory violations but also potential defamatory statements. The irony is that’ the majority would have us determine “guilt” or liability in order to decide whether immunity is available. This upside-down approach would knock out even the narrowest immunity offered under § 230(c) — immunity for defamation as a publisher or speaker.
Another flaw in the majority’s approach is that it fails to account for all of the other information allegedly developed by the webhost. For purposes of determining whether Roommate is an information content provider vis-a-vis the profiles, the inquiry about geography and the inquiry about gender should stand on the same footing. Both are single word prompts followed by a drop-down menu of options. If a prompt about gender constitutes development, then so too does the prompt about geography. And therein lies the rub.
Millions of websites use prompts and drop-down menus. Inquiries range from what credit card you want to use and consumer satisfaction surveys asking about age, sex and household income, to dating sites, e.g., match.com, sites lambasting corporate practices, e.g., ripoffreports.com, and sites that allow truckers to link up with available loads, e.g., getloaded.com. Some of these sites are innocuous while others may not be. Some may solicit illegal information; others may not. But that is not the point. The majority’s definition of “development” would transform every interactive site into an information content provider and the result would render illusory any immunity under § 230(c). Virtually every site could be responsible in part for developing content.
For example, the majority purports to carve out a place for Google and other search engines. Maj. Op. at 1167. But the modern Google is more than a match engine: it ranks search results, provides prompts beyond what the user enters, and answers questions. In contrast, Roommate is a straight match service that searches information and criteria provided by the user, not Roommate. It should be afforded no less protection than Google, Yahoo!, or other search engines.
The majority then argues that “providing neutral tools to carry out what may be unlawful or illicit searches does not amount to ‘development.’ ” Maj. Op. at 1169. But this effort to distinguish Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines from Roommate is unavailing. Under the majority’s definition of “development,” these search engines are equivalent to Roommate. Google “encourages” or “contributes” (the majority’s catch phrases) to the unlawfulness by offering search tools that allow the user to perform an allegedly unlawful match. If a user types into Google’s search box, “looking for a single, Christian, female roommate,” and Google displays responsive listings, Google is surely “materially contributing to the alleged unlawfulness” of information created by third parties, by publishing their intention to discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics. In the defamation arena, a webhost’s publication of a defamatory statement “materially contributes” to its *1184unlawfulness, as publication to third parties is an element of the offense. At bottom, the majority’s definition of “development” can be tucked in, let out, or hemmed up to fit almost any search engine, creating tremendous uncertainty in an area where Congress expected predictability.
“Development” is not without meaning. In Batzel, we hinted that the “development of information” that transforms one into an “information content provider” is “something more substantial than merely editing portions of an email and selecting material for publication.” 333 F.3d at 1031. We did not flesh out further the meaning of “development” because the editor’s alterations of an email message and decision to publish it did not constitute “development.” Id.
Because the statute does not define “development,” we should give the term its ordinary meaning. See San Jose Christian Coll. v. City of Morgan Hill, 360 F.3d 1024, 1034 (9th Cir.2004) (stating that dictionaries may be used to determine the “ ‘plain meaning’ of a term undefined by a statute”). “Development” is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a “gradual advance or growth through progressive changes.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 618 (2002). The multiple uses of “development” and “develop” in other provisions of § 230 give texture to the definition of “development,” and further expose the folly of the majority’s ungrounded definition. See, e.g., § 230(b)(3) (stating that “[i]t is the policy of the United States to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools”) (emphasis added).10 Defining “development” in this way keeps intact the settled rule that the CDA immunizes a webhost who exercises a publisher’s “traditional editorial functions — such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, post-pone, or alter content.” Batzel, 333 F.3d at 1031 n. 18.11
Applying the plain meaning of “development” to Roommate’s sorting and transmitting of third-party information demon*1185strates that it was not transformed into an “information content provider.” In searching, sorting, and transmitting information, Roommate made no changes to the information provided to it by users. Even having notice that users may be using its site to make discriminatory statements is not sufficient to invade Roommate’s immunity. See Zeran, 129 F.3d at 333 (stating that “liability upon notice has a chilling effect on the freedom of Internet speech.”).
The majority blusters that Roommate develops information, because it “requir[es] subscribers to provide the information as a condition of accessing its services,” and “designed its search system so it would steer users based on the preferences and personal characteristics that Roommate itself forces subscribers to disclose.” Maj. Op. at 1165, 1167.12 But the majority, without looking back, races past the plain language of the statute. That Roommate requires users to answer a set of prompts to identify characteristics about themselves does not change the fact that the users have furnished this information to Roommate for Roommate to publish in their profiles. Nor do Roommate’s prompts alter the fact that users have chosen to select characteristics that they find desirable in potential roommates, and have directed Roommate to search and compile results responsive to their requests. Moreover, tagging Roommate with liability for the design of its search system is dangerous precedent for analyzing future Internet cases.
Even if Roommate’s prompts and drop-down menus could be construed to seek out, or encourage, information from users, the CDA does not withhold immunity for the encouragement or solicitation of information.13 See Blumenthal, 992 F.Supp. at 52 (stating that “Congress has made a different policy choice by providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others.”) (emphasis added); Gentry, 121 Cal.Rptr.2d at 718 (noting that “enforcing appellants’ negligence claim would place liability on eBay for simply compiling false and/or misleading content created by the individual defendants and other coconspirators.”). The CDA does not countenance an exception for the solicitation or encouragement of information provided by users.
A number of district courts have recently encountered the claim that an interactive website’s solicitation of information, by requiring user selection of content from drop-down menus, transformed it into an information content provider. Unsurprisingly, these courts reached the same commonsense solution that I reach here: § 230(c)(1) immunizes the interactive service provider. See Whitney Info. Network, Inc. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, No. 2:04-cv-47-FtM-34SPC, 2008 WL 450095, at *10, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11632, at *36 (M.D.Fla. Feb. 15, 2008) (stating that the “mere fact that Xcentric provides categories from which a poster must make a selection in order to submit a report on the [ ] website is not sufficient to treat Defendants as information content providers of the reports”); Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, No. 07-956-*1186PHX-FJM, 2007 WL 2949002, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77551 (D.Ariz. Oct. 10, 2007). Simply supplying a list of options from which a user must select options “is minor and passive participation” that does not defeat CDA immunity. Global Royalties, 2007 WL 2949002, at *3, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77551, at *9; see also Corbis, 351 F.Supp.2d at 1118 (holding that even though Amazon.com “may have encouraged third parties to use the Zshops platform and provided the tools to assist them, that does not disqualify it from immunity under § 230 because the Zshops vendor ultimately decided what information to put on its site.”).
Carafano presented circumstances virtually indistinguishable from those before us, yet the majority comes to the exact opposite conclusion here in denying immunity for sorting and matching third-party information provided in response to webhost prompts. The website in Carafano, an online dating service named Matchmaker.com, asked its users sixty-two detailed questions and matched users according to their responses. We held that § 230(c)(1) immunized the dating service, and flatly rejected the proposition that matching, sorting, and publishing user information in response to webhost prompts abrogated CDA immunity. Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1124-25. A provider’s “decision to structure the information provided by users,” which enables the provider to “offer additional features, such as ‘matching’ profiles with similar characteristics or highly structured searches based on combinations of multiple choice questions,” ultimately “promotes the expressed Congressional policy ‘to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services.’” Id. (quoting § 230(b)(1)). Now the majority narrows Carafano on the basis that Matchmaker did not prompt the allegedly libelous information that was provided by a third party. Maj. Op. at 1171. But the majority makes this distinction without any language in the statute supporting the consideration of the web-host’s prompting or solicitation.
The structure of the statute also supports my view that Congress intended to immunize Roommate’s sorting and publishing of user profiles. An “interactive computer service” is defined to include an “access software provider.” § 230(f)(2). The statute defines an “access software provider” as one that provides “enabling tools” to “filter,” “screen,” “pick,” “choose,” “analyze,” “digest,” “search,” “forward,” “organize,” and “reorganize” content. § 230(f)(4)(A)-(C).
By providing a definition for “access software provider” that is distinct from the definition of an “information content provider,” and withholding immunity for “information content providers,” the statute makes resoundingly clear that packaging, sorting, or publishing third-party information are not the kind of activities that Congress associated with “information content providers.” Yet these activities describe exactly what Roommate does through the publication and distribution of user profiles: Roommate “receives,” “filters,” “digests,” and “analyzes” the information provided by users in response to its registration prompts, and then “transmits,” “organizes,” and “forwards” that information to users in the form of uniformly organized profiles. Roommate is performing tasks that Congress recognized as typical of entities that it intended to immunize.
Finally, consider the logical disconnect of the majority’s opinion. The majority writes — and I agree — that the openended Comments section contains only third-party content. Maj. Op. at 1173-75. But if Roommate’s search function permits sorting by key words such as children or gender, the majority would label Roommate’s use of such criteria as a “discriminatory filtering process.” Id. at 1169-70.
*1187At a minimum, the CDA protects the search criteria employed by websites and does not equate tools that “filter,” “screen,” “pick,” “choose,” “analyze,” “digest,” “search,” “forward,” “organize,” and “reorganize” with the “creation or development” of information. § 230(f)(4)(A)-(C).
Ramifications of the Majority Opinion
I am troubled by the consequences that the majority’s conclusion poses for the ever-expanding Internet community. The unwise narrowing of our precedent, coupled with the mixing and matching of CDA immunity with substantive liability, make it exceedingly difficult for website providers to know whether their activities will be considered immune under the CDA. We got it right in Carafano, that “[u]nder § 230(c) ... so long as a third party willingly provides the essential published content, the interactive service provider receives full immunity regardless of the specific editing or selection process.” 339 F.3d at 1124 (quoted in Doe, 474 F.Supp.2d at 847; Chicago Lawyers’ Comm. for Civil Rights Under the Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 461 F.Supp.2d 681, 690 n. 7 (N.D.Ill.2006); Dimeo v. Max, 433 F.Supp.2d 523, 530 n. 12 (E.D.Pa.2006); Prickett v. Infousa, Inc., No. 04:05-CV-10, 2006 WL 887431, at *2, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21867, at *4 (E.D.Tex. Mar. 30, 2006)).
Significantly, § 230(e) expressly exempts from its scope certain areas of law, such as intellectual property law and federal criminal laws. § 230(e)(1) (“Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of [selected obscenity statutes] or any other Federal criminal statute.”); § 230(e)(2) (“Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property.”). See also Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102, 1118 (9th Cir. 2007). Thus, for example, a webhost may still be liable as a publisher or speaker of third-party information that is alleged to infringe a copyright. Notably, the CDA does not exempt the FHA and a host of other federal statutes from its scope. See § 230(e). The FHA existed at the time of the CDA’s enactment, yet Congress did not add it to the list of specifically enumerated laws for which publisher and speaker liability was left intact. The absence of a statutory exemption suggests that Congress did not intend to provide special case status to the FHA in connection with immunity under the CDA. See TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 28, 122 S.Ct. 441, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001) (stating that “[w]here Congress explicitly enumerates certain exceptions to a general prohibition, additional exceptions are not to be implied, in the absence of evidence of a contrary legislative intent.”) (citation omitted); see also Craigslist, 519 F.3d at 671 (stating that “[t]he question is not whether Congress gave any thought to the Fair Housing Act, but whether it excluded § 3604(c) from the reach of § 230(c)(1)”).
Anticipating the morphing of the Internet and the limits of creative genius and entrepreneurship that fuel its development is virtually impossible. However, Congress explicitly drafted the law to permit this unfettered development of the Internet. Had Congress discovered that, over time, courts across the country have created more expansive immunity than it originally envisioned under the CDA, Congress could have amended the law. But it has not. In fact, just six years ago, Congress approved of the broad immunity that courts have uniformly accorded interactive webhosts under § 230(c).
In 2002, Congress passed the “Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act,” which established a new “kids.us” domain for material that is safe for children. Pub.L. No. 107-317, 116 Stat. 2766. Congress stated that the statutory protections of *1188§ 230(c) were extended to certain entities that operated within the new domain. 47 U.S.C. § 941 (stating that certain entities “are deemed to be interactive computer services for purposes of § 230(c)”). The Committee Report that accompanied the statute declared:
The Committee notes that ISPs have successfully defended many lawsuits using section 230(c). The courts have correctly interpreted section 230(c), which was aimed at protecting against liability for such claims as negligence (See, e.g., Doe v. America Online, 783 So.2d 1010 (Fla.2001)) and defamation (Ben Ezra, Weinstein, and Co. v. America Online, 206 F.3d 980 (2000); Zeran v. America Online, 129 F.3d 327 (1997)). The Committee intends these interpretations of section 230(c) to be equally applicable to those entities covered by H.R. 3833.
H.R. Rep. No. 107-449, 2002 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1741, 1749 (emphasis added). These statements “reflect the Committee’s intent that the existing statutory construction,” i.e., broad immunity for interactive webhosts, “be maintained in a new legislative context.” Barrett, 146 P.3d at 523 n. 17 (discussing H.R.Rep. No. 107-449); see also Heckler v. Turner, 470 U.S. 184, 209, 105 S.Ct. 1138, 84 L.Ed.2d 138 (1985) (noting that subsequent legislative history can shed useful light on Congressional intent). This express Congressional approval of the courts’ interpretation of § 230(c)(1), six years after its enactment, advises us to stay the course of “robust” webhost immunity.
The consequences of the majority’s interpretation are far-reaching. Its position will chill speech on the Internet and impede “the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media.” § 230(b)(1). To the extent the majority strips immunity because of sorting, channeling, and categorizing functions, it guts the heart of § 230(c)(1) immunity. Countless websites operate just like Roommate: they organize information provided by their users into a standardized format, and provide structured searches to help users find information. These sites, and their attendant display, search, and inquiry tools, are an indispensable part of the Internet tool box. Putting a lid on the sorting and searching functions of interactive websites stifles the core of their services.
To the extent the majority strips immunity because the information or query may be illegal under some statute or federal law, this circumstance puts the webhost in the role of a policeman for the laws of the fifty states and the federal system. There are not enough Net Nannies in cyberspace to implement this restriction, and the burden of Altering content would be unfathomable.
To the extent the majority strips immunity because a site solicits or actively encourages content, the result is a direct restriction on the free exchange of ideas and information on the Internet. As noted in the amici curiae brief of the news organizations, online news organization routinely solicit third-party information. Were the websites to face host liability for this content, they “would have no choice but to severely limit its use” and “[sjheer economics would dictate that vast quantities of valuable information be eliminated from websites.” Brief of Amici Curiae News Organizations in Support of Roommate.com, LLC 22.
To the extent the majority strips immunity because a website “materially contributed” to the content or output of a website by “specialization” of content, this approach would essentially swallow the immunity provision. The combination of solicitation, sorting, and potential for liability would put virtually every interactive website in this category. Having a website directed to Christians, Muslims, gays, dis*1189abled veterans, or childless couples could land the website provider in hot water.14
Because the statute itself is cumbersome to interpret in light of today’s Internet architecture, and because the decision today will ripple through the billions of web pages already online, and the countless pages to come in the future, I would take a cautious, careful, and precise approach to the restriction of immunity, not the broad swath cut by the majority. I respectfully dissent and would affirm the district court’s judgment that Roommate is entitled to immunity under § 230(c)(1) of the CDA, subject to examination of whether the bare inquiry itself is unlawful.

.Internet World Stats, World Internet Users: December 2007, http:// www.internet worldstats.com/stats.htm (last visited Mar. 14, 2008); Netcraft, February 2008 Web Server Survey, http://news.netcraft.com/ archives/web — server—survey.html (last visited Mar. 14, 2008).

. Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 566, 122 S.Ct. 1700, 152 L.Ed.2d 771 (2002).

. Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., 339 F.3d 1119, 1123 (9th Cir.2003).

. According to one commentator, in 1985, there were approximately 1,000 host computers connected to the Internet; by 1995, that number had exploded to 4,000,000. Paul H. Arne, New Wine in Old Bottles: The Developing Law of the Internet, 416 PLI/Pat 9, 15 (Sept. 1995).

. The complaint centers on the responses and profiles generated by the users. To the extent that the inquiry in isolation is part of the claims, then I agree with Part 1 of the majority's opinion that § 230(c)(1) would not protect Roommate. However, I cannot join the majority insofar as it eviscerates the distinction between traditional publishers and web-hosts. See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 1164 (ignoring the Congressional carveout for interactive service providers and concluding that if a face-to-face transaction were illegal, it could not be legal in cyberspace).

. The statute also seeks to “remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies” and "to ensure vigorous enforcement of Federal criminal laws to deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and harassment by means of computer.” § 230(b)(4), (5).

. The second part of this subsection, § 230(c)(2), is more accurately characterized as an immunity provision, but is not relevant to our discussion here. Compare 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(2) (stating that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable ...") (emphasis added).

. A user who is a room-seeker fills out an equivalent section named “About Me.”

. The following is an example of a member profile:
The Basics
Rent: $800 per month + $800 deposit Lease: 6 month
Date available: 09/01/04 (14 days)
Utilities included: N/A Features: Private bedroom, Private bathroom
Residence & Vicinity
Building: House, 2 bed, 1.5 bath Features: N/A
Location: (Central) Long Beach, CA Household
Occupant: 1, Age 26, Male (straight) Occupation: Student
Smoking habits: Outside smoker
Cleanliness: About average
Children: Children will not be living with us
Pets: Dog(s)
Preferences
Age group: 18-99
Gender: Male (straight or gay), Female (straight or lesbian)
Smoking: Smoking okay
Cleanliness level: Clean, Average, Messy
Pets: Dog okay, Cat okay, Caged pet okay
Children: Children okay
Comments
LOOKING FOR CHILL ROOMATE [sic] TO
SHARE 2 BR
HOUSE WITH DOG AND FERRET-RENT 800/MO + utill.ómo.lease.

. Congress also stated in the CDA that "[i]t is the policy of the United States to — (1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media,” and "(4) to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies ...” § 230(b)(1), (4) (emphasis added).

. The majority’s notion of using a different definition of "development” digs the majority into a deeper hole. See Maj. Op. at 1167-69. For example, adopting the Wikipedia definition of "content development” — "the process of researching, writing, gathering, organizing and editing information for publication on web sites” — would run us smack into the sphere of Congressionally conferred immuni1y. Wikipedia, Content Development (Web), http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= Content — development—-web. & oldid= 188219503 (last visited Mar. 24, 2008). Both our circuit and others have steadfastly maintained that activities such as organizing or editing information are traditional editorial functions that fall within the scope of CDA immunity. See, e.g., Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1124-25; Zeran, 129 F.3d at 330. Likewise, an alternative definition of “development” from Webster’s such as "a making usable or available” sweeps too broadly, as "making usable or available” is precisely what Google and Craigslist do. In an effort to cabin the reach of the opinion, the majority again goes back to whether the content is legal, i.e., a dating website that requires sex, race, religion, or marital status is legal because it is legad to discriminate in dating. See Maj. Op. at 1169. Of course this approach ignores whether the claim may be one in tort, such as defamation, rather than a statutory discrimination claim. And, this circularity also circumvents the plain language of the statute. Interestingly, the majority has no problem offering up potentially suitable definitions of "development” by turning to dictionaries, but it fails to explain why, and from where, it plucked its definition of "development” as "materially contributing to [the] alleged unlawfulness” of content. See Maj. Op. at 1168.

. Again, Roommate does not force users to disclose preferences as to roommate characteristics.

. The First Circuit has noted that "[i]t is not at all clear that there is a culpable assistance exception to Section 230 immunity!)]” similar to the notion of secondary liability under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Universal Commc'n, 478 F.3d at 421. But it also stated that it "need not decide whether a claim premised on active inducement might be consistent with Section 230 in the absence of a specific exception." Id.

. It is no surprise that there are countless specialized roommate sites. See, e.g., http:// islam.tc/housing/index.php, http://christianroommates.com, and http://prideroommates. com.