To me, this seems different than the 512(a) case, where, taken to an extreme, the manner in which the data is shaped is irrelevant, it is the mere act of shaping that takes the site out of the safe harbor. I hate slippery slope arguments, the lazy intellectual’s fallback, but in the end, any manner or selection or data entry ends up shaping the data to a degree. If I place a textbox on a page, that indicates that the form of the data I am expecting is text. Is that enough to take my site outside of the safe harbor?

However, from the another perspective, the text of the statute seems to indicate that it applies to “online service providers” and does that really just mean ISPs? If the statute were worded “internet service providers”, I would have little quibble with the data shaping distinction. You aren’t really just an ISP if you are shaping the content of the data *cough* Comcast *cough*. But, the phraseology “online” service providers was used, somewhat complicating the issue.

if what the safe harbor is really intended to protect is the mere carriers of data, rather than other types of online data services, it all makes sense. However, I think that the statute is somewhat broader than that, and carried to an extreme would exempt virtually any site which solicits user data from the safe harbors.

The real extreme is the Google example — Google solicits user input to tailor its search results and advertising to the requested data. This solicitation of text “shapes” what the user sees. However, I would posit that these types of search sites were intended to be covered by the safe harbors, otherwise they really have little teeth except for honest to goodness mere providers of the actual network transmission media and associated services.