Social Media Marketing and Ethics Blog for Lawyers
A British juror will be sent to jail for discussing a drug and corruption trial with a defendant on Facebook, the Daily Business Review reports. Prosecutors say the juror communicated with the defendant on the social networking site during the trial last year, with the defendant asking the juror for details of the jury’s deliberations. As […]
In Piccolo v. Paterson , a Bucks County Common Pleas Court judge issued a one-paragraph order denying an insurance company’s motion to compel a car accident victim to accept a friend request providing full access to her Facebook page, Law.com reports. After testifying in her deposition that she had a Facebook account, the insurance company […]
Social media research is the new reality for trial attorneys, the American Bar Association (ABA) opines. Christine Martin of the ABA’s Section of Litigation recognizes that “risks and liabilities covered by the rules of professional ethics, confidentiality, defamation, copyright, and trademark, not to mention legitimate concerns over privacy and safety” are inherent in online social media sites. She makes […]
Lawyers cited Facebook and Twitter as grounds to strike prospective jurors in the Casey Anthony murder trial, reports the Palm Beach Post. Lawyers instantly compared prospective juror’s answers during jury selection with information posted on the jurors online social media websites. Prosecutors used a preemptory challenge to prevent the seating of one individual who they said had […]
A federal judge dismissed a wiretap and computer fraud class action lawsuit filed against Facebook for allegedly leaking Facebook users’ personal information to advertisers. The federal lawsuit accused Facebook of sharing two California men’s real names and other sensitive information with advertisers in violation of the social network’s own privacy policy and various federal and state […]
Social media’s impact on the law is a bit like the Wild Wild West. Because social media is still in its infancy, there is little precedent to provide courts with direction on how to uniformly apply existing law to the social media landscape. As a result, courts are handing down varying decisions as to the […]
Earlier this month, Charlie Sheen began his attempts to trademark slogans like “winning” featured on his twitter account. But can his tweets – limited to 140 characters or less – be afforded protection under copyright law? Probably not. Generally, short phrases face an uphill battle when it comes to satisfying copyright’s requirement of requirement of […]
A Galesburg woman was sentenced to 166 days in jail last week for defrauding individuals across the country using Facebook and dating sites, reports galesburg.com. Police reports state Debie A Miller was attempting to lure men on [Facebook] and promising them with love. The catch was Miller would ask for money up front to pay for her […]
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that former Harvard University schoolmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg can’t undo their settlement over creation of the social networking site, yahoo reports. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, potrayed in the Oscar-nominated film “The Social Network,” argued their settlement with Facebook was unfair because the company hid information from them during […]
For the second time in as many weeks, Facebook has been sued for content posted on its social networking website by a third party. Crimesider reports that the family of New York murder victim Caroline Wimmer sued Facebook after a paramedic took a cell phone photo of the crime scene and posted it on the social networking […]