Legal Commentary

Drew case makes bad precedent

By David Canton

I’ve written before about how the notion that “there ought to be a law against that” can lead to ineffective laws with unintended consequences.  The same can happen in the courts when it is perceived that someone has done something wrong - but it doesn’t fit neatly into the charges.

That appears to be what happened in the Lori Drew conviction.  That’s the tragic case where a teenage girl committed suicide after an online ”friend” turned on her.  But the “friend” was really an adult perpetrating a hoax.

Drew was convicted of criminal charges for her actions, but it has been pointed out that she was essentially convicted because her actions were inconsistent with the terms of use of her mySpace account, ie she did not use here real name.

While I understand the desire to do something here - the conviction makes a bad precedent.  Its not unusual for people to use aliases online.  And making it a criminal offense to violate terms of service is scary.

Techdirt has some good postings on the topic - follow through the Techdirt links for more detail.  The latest post points to a post pointing out that the law as interpreted by the conviction would allow any site owner to make anyone they wanted be a criminal merely by the way the terms of use are drafted - such as saying you can’t use the site if your middle name is Ralph.

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on December 02, 2008 (boomark / email).