New York judge rules 'private' Facebook content can be used as evidence in court
Privacy? On the internet!? You've got to be joking. That has, more or less, been the reaction of New York Justice Jeffrey Spinner when faced with the issue of deciding whether or not content posted to the private sections of Facebook and MySpace should be made available as evidence in court. To be honest, it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, since typically private information -- like emails and home contents -- can regularly be thrown into the public light when there's "a reasonable likelihood" it may turn up evidence material to a trial's outcome. Bring that tradition to the internet -- where publishing anything comes with an inherent desire to disseminate or share that info -- and the lady claiming for personal injuries against a chair company shouldn't be surprised her "private" snaps are being requested. You know, in case they show her doing the limbo on a tropical isle somewhere. Then again, she could always move to California, where a local judge answered pretty much the same question in a converse fashion. Laws, it's all about how you interpret them.
