Henderson v. Source for Pub. Data, L.P.
Issue
Whether § 230(c)(1) immunizes a data broker that aggregates public records, parses and reformats them into a proprietary database, and sells consumer reports — against claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act that the broker failed to maintain accurate records and provide required disclosures.
What Happened
Public Data operated the website PublicData.com, aggregating and selling access to personal information about individuals. Its business involved four steps: (1) acquiring public records from government sources, including criminal and civil records, voting records, driving information, and professional licensing; (2) parsing and reformatting the collected data into its own proprietary presentation, including for criminal records — creating "glib statements" that stripped out identifying information about charges and replaced it with internally created summaries; (3) creating a searchable database from the reformatted data; and (4) selling access to the database, including to employers conducting background checks and to parties checking creditworthiness. Public Data sold roughly 50 million consumer searches and reports per year and knew its traffic included buyers using the data to check creditworthiness and conduct employment background checks. Plaintiff McBride alleged that an inaccurate Public Data report on his criminal history caused him to be denied a job. The district court granted judgment on the pleadings for Public Data, holding § 230(c)(1) barred the FCRA claims. The Fourth Circuit reversed in an opinion by Judge Richardson. The court held that § 230(c)(1) does not apply when the plaintiff's allegations, if true, show that the defendant is itself an "information content provider" — responsible in whole or in part for creating or developing the content at issue. Because Public Data created its own internal summaries of criminal charges, stripped out identifying information, and substituted its own descriptions, it was an information content provider with respect to those records and could not claim § 230 immunity. The court remanded for further proceedings on the FCRA claims.
Why It Matters
A significant Fourth Circuit decision limiting § 230's reach for data brokers that do not merely aggregate and pass along information but actively transform and repackage it into new content. The opinion contrasts with the district court's broader reading and with FTC v. Accusearch, which turned on illegal data acquisition methods. Henderson establishes that § 230 does not protect a data broker that creates its own summaries and reformatted versions of records — at that point, the broker is an information content provider, not a passive publisher.
Related Filings
Other proceedings in the same litigation tracked by this monitor.
How accurate was this summary?