Are You Getting Sued Online?

Posted by Jozzua on Dec 5, 2008 in Random Blabber | 7 comments

The latest talk around the Philippine blogosphere revolves around the latest tussle between a blogger and a PR firm and another blogger’s copyright complaint versus a large news network. Arpee was insulted by Perlas and Luna while Ms. Noemi almost sued ABS-CBN.

While both incidents have been resolved through simple apologies, a legal case in the states might be more important to look at.

Did you hear about the Drew Case yet?

A Missouri woman was indicted… on federal charges for fraudulently using an account on the social networking Web site MySpace, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Thomas P. O’Brien announced today. The woman posed as a teenage boy who feigned romantic interest in a 13 year-old girl, who later committed suicide after the “boy” spurned her and told her, among other things, that the world would be a better place without her.

Yes, you read that right. One mother’s online impersonation and bullying caused a young girl to commit suicide. The case above has some consequences:

…But the “message,” legal observers worry, may be that anyone who uses a Web site without paying close attention to those ubiquitous Terms of Service risks committing a federal crime.

Although not ENTIRELY applicable in the Philippines yet, it shows a new trend in online social interactions — you can get SUED by actions you do online.

This means that any time you signed up for a online service, you could be liable when you don’t put in real information or don’t use the service correctly.

Here’s an example. Did you know that you have to be of legal age (18) to use Google’s services? It’s stipulated in their Terms of Service:

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

Now theoretically speaking, if your kid (below 18) surfed Google and found some porn sites, I could sue somebody (like the parent for allowing the kid to use Google’s service). Legal eagles, correct me if I’m wrong on this, ok?

This also means you can’t always SUE the big companies. For Facebook users, did you know that all the content you submit there will be owned by Facebook? On it’s terms of use page:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Basically, you can’t sue Facebook if they suddenly use your pictures for some commercial endeavor. They just protected themselves legally.

Where’s all this headed? An online legal system of sorts.

The Internet has been like the OLD WILD WEST – you could get away with a lot of things. Now, there will be a bit more legal civility. Might take a few years but it will come. Until then, you guys have fun with your torrents.

I won’t be surprised now if Ms. Noemi would put a Terms of Use in her website – something like:

“You understand that by reading or accessing my blog, you can’t copy content without permission and may be subject to copyright violations…etc. etc.”