Apple (AAPL, Financials), the company behind the iPhone, Mac and iCloud, has won dismissal of a lawsuit that accused it of not doing enough to stop child sexual abuse material from being stored and shared through its cloud service.
The case was brought by two plaintiffs on behalf of roughly 2,680 people. They argued that Apple knew the material was circulating on iCloud and should have used available tools to detect and report it.
A federal judge in California disagreed. She ruled that Section 230 protects Apple from claims based on content uploaded by users.
The judge also said current federal law does not require Apple to create or deploy new scanning technology for iCloud. In her view, any broader change would need to come from Congress rather than the courts.
The lawsuit sought up to $32.8 billion in damages and changes to the way Apple runs iCloud.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, so it cannot be filed again in the same form. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they are considering an appeal.
For Apple, the ruling removes one large legal threat, though a similar case brought by West Virginia is still pending.