by Fred Abramson on February 2, 2010
What privacy rights do you have on social networks? Nearly everyday, civil litigators like myself and law enforcement officials request information from Facebook regarding user information. Understandably, Facebook has been very difficult in responding to such requests, believing that users have a right to privacy concerning its users information. But how much right should users of social networks have over information that is of public record?
Many social networking sites have taken the position that they will not respond to requests for information without a subpoena. This is a problem because users cannot obtain access to their accounts even if their account has been hacked.
This is especially problematic when it comes to the problem of cyber bullying. I have been trying to obtain records from Facebook for a client whose child whose account has been hacked by a cyber bully. Facebook has been unwilling to provide information to me about my clients own account.
According to Law.com, the Deputy General Counsel of Facebook, Mark Howitson told lawyers at the Legal Tech Conference in New York today that they are ready to fight requests for user information without a subpoena.
Unfortunately, you can only serve that subpoena in California which is problematic if you live in New York. Even with a subpoena, they will only provide basic subscriber information unless that user gives his or her consent. The company believes that it does not have to provide user information under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act which was passed before Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, danced to his first disco tune at his bar mitzvah. Since this issue is relatively new, a congressional hearing is forthcoming.
Mr. Howiston suggests that the best way to obtain information from Facebook is to make a simple friend request, which is of little utility.
What do you think? What right of privacy should you have on social networks? Should there be a cyber bullying exception?
by Fred Abramson on November 3, 2009
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Unhappy customers are a fact of life for small businesses. In the past, if a customer was was not pleased about the Miso Black Cod he would simply kvetch to a hundred of his closest friends and never return (unless he was Larry David).
Web 2.0 has changed the way people complain. Disgruntled customers now spend their time logging on to Yelp, Facebook and “Gripe” sites to express their feelings to the net citizens of the world. A poor review on Yelp could create losses of thousands of dollars. If the review is defamatory, should you sue?
The New York Law Journal (pay wall) reports that the bar is very high for a company to win a defamation lawsuit against an individual. In Intellectual Art Multimedia v. Milewski, New York Supreme Court Justice Hon. Judith Gische recently ruled against the company in its Internet defamation lawsuit against a customer who posted negative comments on the Rippoff Report.
Intellectual Art runs the Swiss Finance Academy which operates a school of business. It sued a customer for defamation due to a negative review. Here is a sample of the alleged defamatory comments:
- “[t]hey tell you where the location is then a week before the program starts they change the location and say no refunds whatsoever.”
- “everything they taught was a “JOKE.”
Judge Gische decided that the “speech [was] merely an alleged statement about [the customer's] personal opinion about the quality of the services of the plaintiff (Intellectual Art).” In addition, the judge ruled that on issues dealing with advocating on part of the consumer, courts are reluctant to stifle criticism of goods or services.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong, small businesses can still sue a customer for defamation. If the remarks are more than criticism, contact a lawyer. However, in this era of transparency, it is much cheaper to engage in business practices that foster trust than to start a lawsuit. Use Google Alerts and establish a Twitter account to monitor your brand. If a customer is unhappy, ask him why. Companies such as Zappos built an empire on listening to their customers through social media. So should you.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=dc3f8986-4cf2-453f-907e-11506e2db19b "Facebooks Law Department is Ready to Brawl over Requests for Information from a Users Facebook Account")
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2ab60070-46d1-4aec-8063-2051ea3b28da "The bar is high for Defamation Lawsuits against reviewers on Yelp and Gripe sites.")
