Judge Refuses to Order Amazon to Host Parler

January 21, 2021Media Mention
Law.com | The Recorder

Greenberg Glusker litigation partner Doug Mirell provided commentary to Law.com/The Recorder regarding Parler's antitrust and breach of contract lawsuit against Amazon. Following the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, Parler was removed from Amazon's web hosting platform. In a ruling on January 21, Senior U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein of the Western District of Washington denied an injunction that would have forced Amazon to resume hosting Parler’s website.

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“The First Amendment rights really are on the other side,” Mirell said. “Because it is the prerogative under the First Amendment for a publisher to decide what it will and will not agree to publish. … And since this decision doesn’t implicate government conduct or state action in the vernacular, Amazon is free to do what it wants. In terms of Parler they have already, I think, done what they needed to do which is to find a different host.”

“In terms of the kind of relief that Parler is seeking which is effectively injunctive relief, one of the things you need to demonstrate is irreparable injury,” Mirell said. “Since they’re already back online… and since they can’t demonstrate that there aren’t other ways in which their site can be hosted, it seems to me that this is a classically uphill battle for Parler.”

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