Synergies? Fox News Skips Fox's Own Social Network For Facebook

from the synergies-don't-mean-much dept

While we do believe that there can be so-called "synergies" in various mergers and acquisitions, it often does seem as though companies over state what those benefits may be. Take, for example, the news that TV channel Fox News has set up shop on Facebook, rather than the social network's main competitor, MySpace. MySpace just so happens to be owned by Fox -- so it may seem odd that Fox News chose to go with Facebook rather than sister company MySpace. Basically, it appears that Fox News recognized that it was more likely to find an audience on Facebook than MySpace. This highlights just how silly some expected "synergies" often turn out to be. While many may have expected that the close relationship between Fox News and MySpace would mean that there's some advantage to both organizations to work together, the truth was the opposite. If Fox News had gone with MySpace instead, due to "synergies," (i.e., management mandates that those two companies work together) the end effect would have been worse. Fox News would have gone with the social network that didn't fit as well -- just to please management. So, rather than a "benefit" the so-called synergy would have been a net negative. In other words, the so-called "synergies" wouldn't actually have been... well... synergistic. The end result shows why so many mergers over so-called "synergies" don't really make much sense. If there's true synergy between the separate organizations, then they can work together as partners, rather than from within the same company. Otherwise, you get a situation where you may be locked in to a partner who is not as good as one outside your organization. (Post updated to clarify).

Filed Under: social networks, synergies
Companies: facebook, fox, fox news, myspace

MySpace Wins Another Lawsuit Against Another Famous Spam King

from the richter-goes-down-again dept

Just a month after MySpace won a huge fine against famed spam king Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, it's now won its lawsuit against another big name spam king: Scott Richter, who it sued a year and a half ago. Richter and his father (who runs the company) are claiming victory in that the fine is only $6 million -- when MySpace had been asking for much more. You may notice that I'm not linking to coverage of this story, since right now it appears that only the Associated Press is writing about it -- and, as you may have heard, the AP has decided it doesn't want bloggers linking to its stories. Fair enough. Update: Here's the News.com coverage.

Filed Under: scott richter, spam
Companies: myspace

EFF Protects Anonymity Of MySpace User

from the good-for-them dept

While not necessarily true in other countries, the US courts tend to do an excellent job protecting the rights of individuals to criticize others anonymously. Of course, when you're the victim of that anonymous criticism, it's often not very enjoyable -- and many assume that what they don't like must be illegal, and therefore sue. This is especially true in anonymity cases, where the victims feel that it positively must be illegal to be anonymous and make such statements.

The EFF has been defending a number of these cases, and recently filed an amicus brief against the town president of a Chicago suburb who had filed a lawsuit seeking the identity of whoever had set up a MySpace profile mocking the guy. The EFF explained how revealing the identity of the user, without having the president of the town first show proof of defamation, would be a violation of the poster's First Amendment rights to privacy. Luckily, after seeing the EFF's argument, the guy withdrew his lawsuit, though it remains to be seen if he'll try to file again with more proof of defamation.

Filed Under: anonymity, eff
Companies: myspace

Is A Fake Facebook Profile Illegal?

from the down-in-the-legal-weeds dept

Remember the guy who was arrested and sent to jail for creating a fake Facebook profile of a Moroccan prince? While it's unlikely that anyone will land in jail, more such disputes have been ending up in the courtroom. It seems to be most popular in high schools, where teachers and administrators are suing students for setting up fake profiles of them. It's not difficult to see why these adults are upset -- as the profiles are usually quite unflattering. But, it's an open question as to whether or not the profiles are illegal. Even more to the point, Facebook has a clear policy that it will delete fake profiles when it becomes aware of them, so it seems like quite a bit of overkill for teachers to sue students rather than just having Facebook take down the profiles.

Filed Under: fake profile, first amendment, free speech, identity fraud, students, teachers
Companies: facebook, myspace

Data Ownership Might Not Work for Social Networking Sites

from the open-or-closed dept

Chris Saad, head of the DataPortability Project, weighs in on last week's announcements from MySpace, Facebook, and Google of new data-sharing services. Saad says that while none of these services fully achieve the goals of DataPortability, all are steps in the right direction, and MySpace's approach is most promising. Saad points out that data-sharing is grounded in a social contract. He gives the good example of an email address book. When someone sends me email, it's understood that I'm free to put it in my address book, and that I'm mostly free to do as I please with my address book. I can, for example, export my address book to a third party site to see if my friends are using the site. However, I face social pressures not to do something malicious like sell my address book to spammers. If I did that, many of the friends in my address book might not speak to me again.

Now social networking sites are trying to hash out a similar social contract for the use of their customers' data. When Facebook cut off Google from its Connect service, it was effectively trying to establish a similar, albeit more restrictive, social contract: using information from Facebook is OK, but sharing it with third parties is not. But it's not clear how well this will work. As Tom pointed out a few months ago, it's extremely difficult to limit the spread of information once it's been released online. Also, notice that in the address book example, much of the force of the social contract comes from personal ties to the people in my address book. Companies don't have personal relationships, and they can't exert pressure on one another in the same ways individuals can. So when information-sharing is automated, informal social mechanisms may not be sufficient to stop abuse.

There are several ways the social networking world could evolve. One is the totally open approach of email, in which it's assumed that any information you put online can be widely shared. Another is the walled garden approach that now dominates with instant messaging, in which sites tightly control access to information and offer very little third-party access to it, and people have to sign up for multiple services to reach everyone. A third possible model is a "data ownership" model, in which sites share information while users retain ultimate control over it. But as Ed Felten pointed out back in January, ownership may not be a good way to think about privacy issues. It may not be possible to design contractual mechanisms that make these ownership claim enforcible. And that would mean we'd face a choice between a totally open model and a totally closed one, with very little in between.

Filed Under: data ownership, data portability, social contracts
Companies: facebook, google, myspace

MySpace Still Not Liable For Sexual Assault Between Two MySpace Users

from the in-case-you-missed-it-the-first-time dept

Two years ago, we pointed to one of the more ridiculous lawsuits attempting to shift the blame and responsibility for certain actions away from those who were responsible, to those who had the money. A 13-year-old girl went onto MySpace, lied about her age, and struck up a relationship with an older boy. Eventually, the two agreed to meet, and the girl says that the boy sexually assaulted her. So, obviously, the mother of the 13-year-old girl sued MySpace. It seemed like such a good strategy that the boy accused of rape also considered blaming MySpace. Of course, as you should know by now, section 230 of the CDA (and basic common sense) protects websites from the actions of their users. And, in fact, that's exactly what the judge told the woman and her daughter in tossing out the case.

Rather than understanding the law (and basic responsibility), the mother of course appealed the decision, and even tried to come up with a novel argument for why this wasn't about section 230 at all, by saying that the company was somehow negligent in "policing its premises." Luckily (and not surprisingly) the judge isn't buying it. Eric Goldman lets us know that the appeals court has again sided with MySpace in pointing out that there is no liability for MySpace. They also tried to pull in the recent (somewhat questionable) Roommates.com decision, which was in a different circuit and argued that Roommates.com lost safe harbors because it specifically requested illegal information (which probably wouldn't even apply in this case). However, since appeals are only on the facts argued in the lower court and this was an entirely new argument, the court refused to consider it.

Either way, this still seems like a case where the girl and her mother are blaming the wrong party in trying to squeeze millions of dollars out of MySpace. The best summation of the situation probably comes from the transcript of the original trial court hearing, which the appeals court quoted:

THE COURT: I want to get this straight. You have a 13-year-old girl who lies, disobeys all of the instructions, later on disobeys the warning not to give personal information, obviously, [and] does not communicate with the parent. More important, the parent does not exercise the parental control over the minor. The minor gets sexually abused, and you want somebody else to pay for it? This is the lawsuit that you filed?

MR. ITKIN [Counsel for the Does]: Yes, your Honor.

Filed Under: liability, section 230, sexual assault
Companies: myspace

Prosecutors Go Overboard In Indicting Woman Involved In MySpace Hoax That Resulted In Suicide

from the out-for-vengeance dept

Before we get into the details, I think everyone can agree that the story of Megan Meier is quite tragic. She was the 13-year-old girl who was "friended" on MySpace by a boy with whom she became close online. After a certain amount of time, the boy turned on her, trying to end the friendship and saying that "the world would be better off without her." After receiving this message, Megan committed suicide. Later, it was discovered that the boy in question never existed -- and was part of a hoax perpetrated by some of Megan's friends/neighbors, including the mother of one of Megan's former friends. The story is, most definitely, sad and tragic -- and it's no surprise that there are people out for vengeance, with the main target being Lori Drew, the adult who participated in some manner in the hoax. However, as we said back when state prosecutors in Missouri couldn't find any law to prosecute, being a total jerk online is not a crime. As stupid as the prank was, it wasn't designed to make the girl commit suicide.

But, of course, when you have a high profile case that includes a 13-year-old girl committing suicide after being misled, people are still going to push for something to be done (or they end up doing something themselves). So with state prosecutors failing to find anything, federal prosecutors stepped in, and have now indicted Lori Drew on a number of different charges, relating to "conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer." This seems like a serious stretch. It's an effort to twist existing laws just to punish this particular woman because people are upset by the outcome. Legal scholars are already quite worried about how the indictments appear to twist the law in potentially unconstitutional ways.

Why? Well, some of the charges are based on computer anti-fraud laws that prevent "unauthorized access." And, here's where the prosecutors got creative: they claim that in not providing truthful info to MySpace when registering (i.e., in breaking the terms of service), effectively Lori Drew "hacked" into MySpace's computers in an unauthorized manner. Now, no matter what you think of what Lori Drew did (or what happened as a result), this would basically make anyone who fails to follow the exact terms of service of an online service a potential felony hacker. That is a problem. I recognize the desire to punish someone for what happened to Megan -- but twisting the law this way will have very dangerous consequences.

Filed Under: fraud, hoax, lori drew, megan meier, social networks, suicide, vengeance
Companies: myspace

MySpace Wins An Uncollectable $234 Million Award In Spam Case

from the sending-a-message? dept

Last month, we wrote about how MySpace had won its case against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace -- the infamous 1990s "Spam King" who (despite losing many court battles and owing millions in fines) simply can't seem to give up his obsession with scammy marketing techniques. The win was a default judgment, mainly because Wallace simply disappeared and stopped responding to court requests. Today, a judge ruled on the punishment, officially awarding MySpace $234 million from Wallace and his associate Walter Rines. Given Wallace's disappearing act (which he's done in the past as well) it's unlikely that MySpace will ever see a dime of the money, but that hasn't stopped the company from touting this as the largest ever award under CAN SPAM. Amusingly, the extremely short court ruling also bars Wallace from setting up any new MySpace profiles. It doesn't say anything about Facebook, though, so perhaps that's where we'll see him next...

Filed Under: can spam, fines, sanford wallace, social networks, spam, spamford, walter rines
Companies: myspace

MySpace Wins Against Spamford Wallace Who Has Disappeared (Once Again)

from the old-habits-die-hard dept

Remember Sanford "Spamford" Wallace? Back in the 90s, he was the face of the proud spammer. He was quoted widely and proclaimed himself the spam king (which he insisted was legal). That was great until the law caught up to him and he claimed he reformed. For a little while he went into the nightclub business, which didn't work out. So, he jumped on the next big thing: spyware. A $4 million fine later, and he apparently moved on to spamming MySpace, setting up 11,000 fake profiles that redirected visitors to various marketing websites.

MySpace sued him for this and a judge has ruled in the company's favor, in large part because Wallace pretty much ignored the case. At first he procrastinated and gave excuses, and then just stopped responding altogether. This isn't the first time this has happened, either. With that whole spyware case a few years back, even Wallace's lawyer admitted that Wallace had disappeared entirely. Sense a pattern? Wallace seems to jump on any sort of scheming online marketing scam, and when the law finally catches up to him, he runs and hides. Somehow, I doubt that MySpace will collect on any money the court awards it.

Filed Under: sanford wallace, spamford wallace
Companies: myspace

Sending Love Notes Via MySpace Not Considered Harassment

from the not-that-it-should-give-you-any-ideas dept

Teenagers fall in love quite easily... and when they do, they often do silly things like repeatedly telling the object of their affection how they feel, even if that love is unrequited. These days, with teens living on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, it should come as no surprise that many are using such social networks to express that love. Apparently, one young woman felt that an infatuated teen's MySpace repeated messages constituted harassment. However, in a rather eloquent decision, a NY court has disagreed, pointing out the awkward and obsessive nature of teenaged love, combined with the more practical fact that MySpace users can block messages (which this girl never did) and that she never bothered to tell the guy to stop sending such messages. Combine this with the recent ruling that sending a Facebook friend request to an ex- is not harassment, and you start to realize that the courts are going to be quite busy over the next few years trying to port offline laws into the online world of social networks.

Filed Under: harassment, social networks
Companies: myspace