Looking to Get Out of Jury Duty? Be a Social Media Dimwit

As is the case in many things in life, just because a lot of people have something it doesn’t mean they know how to use it. Back in the Stone Age of video everyone had a VCR but no one could program the darn thing.

We are now seeing the same happen with social media. There are a lot of people with accounts or profiles or whatever in the social media space but that doesn’t mean they can harness the power of the medium or even understand much beyond updating a status.

One area that is getting more aggressive in its use of social media channels is the law. It is already fairly well known that divorce lawyers are using social media outlets to catch opposing spouses in compromising social media positions. Now lawyers are turning to social media to help clean up the jury pool before they go to trial.

The Wall Street Journal reports

Facebook is increasingly being used in courts to decide who is—and who isn’t—suitable to serve on a jury, the latest way in which the social-networking site is altering the U.S. court system.

Prosecution and defense lawyers are scouring the site for personal details about members of the jury pool that could signal which side they might sympathize with during a trial. They consider what potential jurors watch on television, their interests and hobbies, and how religious they are.

This is one of those developments that is generating significant talk from both sides of the argument. Lawyers love being able to turn over a rock on a perspective juror that reveals a potential bias that could hurt their client’s chances of victory. Not everyone connected to the law is happy about this development though.

Some legal experts oppose this growing practice of scouring social-media sites, arguing that the traditional jury-selection process, which involves lawyers questioning prospective jurors, provides more valuable information than out-of-context online comments.

“I don’t think we should abandon that system in favor of Internet snooping,” said Jason Schultz, co-director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, law school. “There are a number people who post who they want to be, as opposed to who they are.”

No kidding? Really? People acting all unlike their real selves online? Well, looks like it’s time to pack up the plantation and move on because I though everyone was always honest online.

It’s getting pretty high tech in the world of law these days for sure. Here is one instance where this idea was applied

Armando Villalobos, the district attorney of Cameron County, Brownsville, Texas, last year equipped his prosecutors with iPads to scan the Web during jury selection.

He acknowledged that they sometimes dug up only the unprotected tidbits that Facebook users share with everyone, such as their alma mater or favorite band.

Many people, he said, limit access to more telling details to those they have “friended.” (It’s unclear, for example, what his prosecutors would glean from Mr. Villalobos’s own Facebook page, without friending him: It shows he is married and a fan of the TV show “Spartacus.”)

Now is where it gets pretty silly because we know that lawyers like to find ways around things. In order to help with getting more information on a jury pool the lawyer mentioned above, Mr. Villalobos, has come up with this possible scheme to help folks in a jury pool pass the time.

Mr. Villalobos is considering a method to get behind the site’s private wall to learn more. One option: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court’s wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily “friending” his office.

Would anybody really fall for that line? Whether they do or not, it looks like the legal field is certainly still willing to stretch the boundaries of anything as indicated by this quote from another lawyer.

Mr. Josh Marquis, district attorney of Clatsop County in Oregon, said that even small details, like a person’s favorite show, could say something about them. A predilection for crime shows, such as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” tells Mr. Marquis that the prospective juror might have unrealistic expectations that DNA evidence could be obtained from every crime scene.

I wonder if my choice of Seinfeld as a favorite TV show makes me an unfeeling, self-centered, narcissistic person (or does that make me a Twitter guru?)?

Are there limits, in your opinion, as to how far this open information world we live in should go to? Are people really aware of what they are doing to themselves with their online behavior? I sincerely doubt it considering some of the things I have seen people do (and, admittedly some of the incredibly stupid moves I have made which has caused me to know just how my foot tastes).

But hey, if you can get out jury duty by just being yourself maybe there is an upside? What are your thoughts?

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Behavorial Advertising Takes Another Hit from Washington

This morning, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) was named chairman of a new Judiciary subcommittee for Privacy, Technology and the Law. The list of activities that the committee will oversee is a long one and it includes the collection of information for behavioral advertising and privacy in social networks.

Says Franken:

“The boom of new technologies over the last several years has made it easier to keep in touch with family, organize a community and start a business. It has also put an unprecedented amount of personal information into the hands of large companies that are unknown and unaccountable to the American public. As chairman of this new subcommittee, I will try to make sure that we can reap the rewards of new technology while also protecting Americans’ right to privacy.”

All of this comes only days after two “Do-Not-Track” bills were introduced in Congress.

Jackie Speier, a congresswoman from California introduced the “Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011.” The act would give the FTC the power to force companies to offer an option that allows consumers to opt-out of internet tracking. A statement from Speier’s office went so far as to say, “Failure to do so would be considered an unfair or deceptive act punishable by law.”

On Thursday, Rep. Bobby Rush reintroduced his privacy bill which would require companies to get consent from any consumer they wished to track.

And that’s not all. Washington watchers say that a few more Representatives and Senators will be submitting their privacy bills over the next week such as Rep. Ed Markey who will introduce a bill specific to online privacy for children.

Privacy on the internet has become an oxymoron and it is about time that the laws caught up to the technology. In the meantime, internet companies are taking it upon themselves to put privacy protections into place with browsers that allow for opting out of tracking and stricter rules regarding the use of collected data.

But with so many government officials spearheading their own agendas it’s hard to imagine that any one of them will succeed in putting a reasonable plan into place. Certainly not any time soon.

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Consumer Product Safety Board Puts Complaints Online

If you routinely scan social media for complaints about your business or product, come March you’ll need to add another site to the list. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is now beta testing a new website that will allow consumers to list their complaints publicly. The site is called SaferProducts.gov and AdAge calls it “Yelp with the imprimatur of government authority.”

The site will focus only on product safety issues and complaints will be screened before they go live, but don’t expect too many of the posts to get tossed. The CPSC says, all comments “that meet the minimum requirements for publication in the Database will be disclosed in the Database.” The legalese that follows is pretty extensive but it all boils down to what the screener considers to be reasonable. Which means, unless a consumer sends in a blatantly outrageous claim, it’s likely to get published.

Once the claim goes live, the CPSC will attempt to contact the businesses associated with the product and they’ll have ten days to write their rebuttal which will be published next to the claim.

As AdAge puts it, “the burden of proof there lies with the manufacturer.”

No one wants to see a child injured by a faulty toy or a death due to incorrectly manufactured tires, but given our propensity to sue our fellow man, this database sounds like it has the potential to get out of hand and fast. It’s one thing to see a complaint on Yelp about a plumber who arrived an hour late and another thing entirely to see an injury claim on a government website. No matter what kind of disclaimers they put in the fine print, people are going to assume that these complaints were vetted. It is a dot gov website after all, so that means there’s authority behind the words. Or rather, there should be.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a small office that already handles thousands of complaints every year, maybe millions. If even a small fraction of those complaints end up on the public website, it’s going to be damage control time for a lot of companies both big and small.

What do you think of the idea of putting CPSC complaints online? Is public safety more important than a company’s reputation? And as a marketer, are you prepared to handle a sudden wave of very public complaints?

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Could Social Media Sharing Violate Copyright?

Everyone agrees that stealing the work of another person is wrong, but the definition of what constitutes stealing is a murkier matter. In most cases we roll back to the term “fair use” which allows a person to quote a section of an article or book for the purposes of education or discussion. You see that here all the time. There’s no malicious intent and there is no damage to the original party. On the contrary, the original writer will likely get a traffic boost from people clicking through to the source material, so it’s often a good thing.

Now here comes Righthaven LLC. According to a story in Fortune, the law firm is taking an aggressive stance against copyright violators by skipping the cease and desist letter and going straight to court. In every case, they’re demanding $150,000 in damages and the offender’s domain name. Ouch.

What’s especially disturbing about Righthaven’s crusade is the way they’re going about it. In order to prosecute, the original creator of the material transfers copyright ownership to Righthaven so they can sue on their own behalf. One judge took exception to this saying they aren’t a publisher, so they can’t sell the original work, so no damages.

The real fear here is not whether Righthaven has a leg to stand on, but that most people won’t have the money to fight. When faced with court costs, most bloggers will have no choice but to pay a fine and give up their domain name even if they were inside the letter of the law.

Fortune author Pullen asks this question:

But the damages to society, print publications, and the Internet at large may far surpass any fine, no matter how substantial. These cases will define where — in the social media era — sharing ends, stealing begins, and fair use applies.

Sounds like it’s time for the courts to tighten up the rules. For example? If a blog offers an RSS feed and I put that feed on my website, is that a violation? Does the act of offering a feed or a share button negate their copyright claim? Could we reach a point where the fear of getting sued outweighs the interest in reposting an article or photo? Will the court system ever catch up to technology?

Tune in tomorrow. Same blog-time. Same blog-channel.

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Apple Gets Hit with Privacy Suit: A Poem

Twas the week after Christmas and all through the land, millions of folks were making merry with iPads in their hands. In their pockets were iPhones, both fresh from the box. This Christmas was the best, they shouted, it really does rock!

But off in the distance they heard a small sound, the noise of a lawsuit slapping Apple around! They’re stealing our info, the lawsuit did shout. Leaving folks all to wonder what the fuss was about.

It’s the apps, said the lawsuit, they’re selling us out, they’re smashing our privacy of that there’s no doubt. Our names and locations, age, gender and more, if the app companies want it, we should show them the door! Apple can’t be allowed to sell our info this way, without our consent and without giving us pay. It’s our information and we want it kept quiet, so the court needs to stop them so no one can buy it!

Privacy is important says the lawyers from New York, whether you’re Joe the Plumber or that singer named Bjork. So now the court must decide as we broach the new year, whether Apple is liable for harshing our cheer. The lawyers, they claim, it’s about protecting our rights, but I say it’s a billion dollar settlement that they’ve got in their sights.

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Twitter Says No More to TwitterMoms

Two years ago, Megan Calhoun launched a website devoted to connecting mom bloggers through Twitter. Thousands of moms signed up and with that came the brand names, eager to catch the ear of this influential segment of the online population.

She called the site TwitterMoms and I joined up back in August of 2009. Since then, I’ve been involved in a wide variety of marketing programs which were offered exclusively to members. Most of these were pay or gift for post opportunities where I was rewarded for writing about a product on my blog.  According to the website, more than $160,000 was rewarded to community members over the last year. A portion of the money was given to charity, and many members added their voice to stories for NBC/iVillage, the LA and New York Times and other media outlets.

What started out as a fun way to connect, turned into big business for Megan and her team and that’s probably why Twitter is now complaining about the use of their name.

A week ago, Megan Calhoun posted a message saying that Twitter had written to ask her to change the name of the site due to trademark violation. Their motivation is understandable. The name, TwitterMoms, does make you think that it’s related to Twitter but it is interesting that it took them two years to make the claim.

Megan might have lost sleep over losing her hard-won, firmly established name, but she says that she’d been mulling over a change anyway, so it became the final push she needed to make it so.

Twitter’s request was entirely reasonable and understandable. We never hesitated to communicate our intention to comply with their wishes. The time for change had come.

So, we caught our breath and set out to find a great new domain name that more accurately described the community we serve and our mission. After considering dozens of options, we settled on SocialMoms.com. Our new brand will officially launch in early January.

SocialMoms is a much better descriptor for the company and I’m glad to see that they found a name that will likely trump the one they had before. It’s also good to see a grassroots effort continue to grow despite being pecked by the beak of a bigger bird.

It’s going to work out for TwitterMoms, but the story does point out the potential danger of hitching your wagon to someone else’s star.

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Commerce Department, Ma’am. Privacy Division

I can see it now. The black screen, the ominous ba bum sound and then the words, Law & Order: Privacy Division. They’re federal agents who put their lives on the line every day so that you, the internet user, can surf without fear of being molested by targeted Old Navy ads and free lunch coupons on your birthday. Sure they’re making it hard for the small business marketer to sell his wares, but hey, that’s the way the browser cookie crumbles. Get over it.

So, maybe it won’t be on next fall’s TV schedule, but it may be coming to a computer near you, if the federal government gets their way. Yesterday, the Commerce Department released the Internet Policy Task Force Privacy Green Paper which is loaded with recommendations “aimed at promoting consumer privacy online while ensuring the Internet remains a platform that spurs innovation, job creation, and economic growth.”

The crux of the long report is that it’s okay for the industry to self-regulate as long as the government has the power to come in and slap them when they don’t do it right. Huh? That’s like asking someone to get you a coffee then docking their pay when they bring you a café latte instead of a café mocha.

There’s no question that privacy is an issue on the web. As the report points out, global transactions run around $10 trillion annually. More people than ever are working on the internet, many handling sensitive data, and then there are the kids who think nothing of providing personal information to anyone who asks. Yes, rules would be good. But making them voluntary kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Here are the key recommendations from the report:

Consider Establishing Fair Information Practice Principles comparable to a “Privacy Bill of Rights” for Online Consumers

They’re looking to establish a reasonable set of principles governing how information can be collected and used. They’re also advocating more transparency when it comes to informing consumers of their rights. Those read and check privacy pop-ups that everyone checks but doesn’t read, aren’t cutting it.

Consider Developing Enforceable Privacy Codes of Conduct in Specific Sectors with Stakeholders; Create a Privacy Policy Office in the Department of Commerce

They want to establish a special government office to handle internet privacy. They’ll have badges and secret decoder rings and the right to shut down abusive websites in a single bound.

Encourage Global Interoperability to Spur Innovation and Trade

Basically, this is the ‘can’t we all just get along’ section which suggests we find a “practical means of bridging differences in our privacy frameworks.” It is a small world, after all.

Consider How to Harmonize Disparate Security Breach Notification Rules

I love the use of the word “harmonize” here. Makes it sound like the groups from The Sing-Off will be employed to go door-to-door to announce whenever Facebook accidentally sells their private data to a game company. Could work.

Review the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for the Cloud Computing Environment

Ah, cloud computing. Like harmonize, it makes it sound all sweet and fluffy. But this section is all about making sure that the laws keep up with the growth in location-based services. This is the one place where they really get tough. “As technology and market conditions change, ECPA continues to appropriately protect individuals’ privacy expectations and punish unlawful access and disclosure of consumer data.”

Punish! Now we’re getting to the heart of this thing. But as harsh as that may sound to you, the marketer, consumer watchdogs say it’s a gift.

In a recent press release, John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog had this to say;

“The Commerce report starts off on the wrong foot with the title, ‘Commercial Data Privacy…’ We are talking about consumers’ data and their right to privacy, not about a business commodity. This is an early Christmas gift to the data collection industry.”

I wouldn’t ever say that government involvement in anything is a “gift” but he does have a point. This lengthy Commerce Department report is all about how the US government wants to protect the people, but the whole thing sounds like a giant game of Mother, May I. Yes, Facebook, you may take two giants steps toward the finish line.

Want to read the whole report. Good for you. Go download a copy at http://www.commerce.gov/node/12471.

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FTC Online Privacy Report Endorses Do Not Track

The FTC issued a report today that outlines their plan to deal with privacy issues on the internet. Even though online advertisers are working on a self-policing program,it looks like the federal government is going to have their say and their say trumps anything from the private sector.

The report states that industry efforts have been “too slow, and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.” The FTC says that current privacy policies, which are long and full of legalize, are confusing to consumers if they can find the policy and they take the time to read it. The report wants to shift the responsibility away from the consumer and on to the advertisers. They call it “privacy by design,” suggesting that companies build “privacy protections into their everyday business practices.”

The biggest issue in the report is the idea of forcing a “Do Not Track” setting that would leave it up to the consumer to decide how much data they give away on a case by case bases. They recommend a cookie-like setting on each person’s browser that denotes whether they are okay with tracking and targeted ads or not.

The FTC does understand that there are occasions where consent isn’t necessary. Says the report:

“It is reasonable for companies to engage in certain practices – namely, product and service fulfillment, internal operations such as improving services offered, fraud prevention, legal compliance, and first-party marketing. By clarifying those practices for which consumer consent is unnecessary, companies will be able to streamline their communications with consumers, reducing the burden and confusion on consumers and businesses alike.”

The FTC takes privacy issues seriously and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz made it clear that they “will take action against companies that cross the line with consumer data and violate consumers’ privacy – especially when children and teens are involved.”

The main buzz word here is “transparency.” The FTC wants to make sure that consumers understand their right to privacy and that they’re given simple instructions for how to exercise those rights.  Sounds reasonable, but will it be enough to derail the practice of targeted ads or is it unlikely that many consumers will take advantage of the Do Not Track option out of pure indifference?

Public comments on the report will be accepted until January 31, 2011. To file a public comment electronically, you may click here and follow the instructions.

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Facebook Gets Aggressive with Trademarks

Facebook is on its way to trademarking the word “Face,” but don’t worry, you won’t have to change your lingo to “Get out of my countenance” any time soon. According to Inside Facebook, the trademark application only applies when the word “face” is used in specific circumstances. Here’s the language of the application:

Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars.

The first part I get, but cars? Is Facebook going into the automobile dealer business? (Facemobiles?)

I can’t begrudge a company trying to protect its turf but are they really worried that someone will confuse Joe’s Faceforum with the one and only Facebook?

What Facebook clearly does worry about is being mocked. TechCrunch reported that Facebook was blocking any mention of parody site Lamebook, even in private messages sent through the system. They show a message that says their Lamebook message was abusive or spam. I sent a message with the word in it and it wasn’t blocked, so perhaps they’ve changed their stance.

Facebook is in the process of suing Lamebook for copyright infringement so it does seem like an odd accident (as Facebook claims in a response to TechCrunch) that Lamebook was being blocked.

But all of this begs the question of just how “big brother” Facebook is going to be when they get their new message system up and running. If their trademark on “face” goes through, will they block messages that they feel uses the word improperly? Facebook doesn’t allow adult content on the site, but what if I want to send a passage from my favorite erotica novel to a friend via the messaging system?

Facebook isn’t owned by the huddled masses, so they can ban whatever they want from its public pages, but once they offer themselves up as a private message system, that’s a different story.

What do you think? Does Facebook have a right to censor private messages sent using their servers?

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Should You Be Archiving Your Social Media Data?

Imagine throwing all of your company’s hard copy files off the roof of twenty-story building in Manhattan. Tax returns, meeting notes, personnel files, all of it, gone with the wind.

That’s the brick and mortar version of the business data that’s currently speeding along the social media super highway. From public Twitter Tweets to private Facebook messages more and more of our daily exchanges are happening over the Internet and it means we’re losing track.

Sure, you probably don’t set out to send formal communications through Facebook but you’re on the site and Susan’s on the site, so why not just ping her chat box and let her know that deadline was moved up to Tuesday? And remember that customer complaint on Twitter? The one where you promised the guy a replacement part overnight? Forgot about him, didn’t you?

Web 2.0 makes it easy for us to pass information along quickly any time of the day or night. There’s no more 9 to 5, not when the Internet is always on. But this ease of communication can come with a high price tag. We live in a litigious world and if you get sued because of something posted on Facebook, you’ll need those posts to defend yourself in court.

The New York Times recently posted an article called Tools to Help Companies Manage Their Social Media.” In it, they talk with experts about social media record keeping, the reasons for doing it and the means behind it. Everyone agrees that it’s not a simple task but it’s got to be done. For some companies, archiving communication is a legal requirement. For others, it’s just good business.

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, it’s time to put your virtual paperwork in order along with the stuff made from trees. Worst case scenario, if you see trouble brewing on one of your social media channels or a great idea simmering below the surface, take a screen shot. Those few extra seconds could save you a lot of time and aggravation down the line.

What do you think? Do you archive your social media communications?

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Foursquare Founder to Fall Foul of FTC?

Last Year the FTC revised guidelines governing the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. As you may recall, the big news then was the addition of a rule stating that bloggers who accept free merchandise or services from companies they write about must reveal the terms of that endorsement to their readers or be found in violation of the law. Apparently someone forgot to tell Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley about this.

As discussed at CNNmoney.com, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley recently speculated at a panel hosted by NYU, that “the next big thing” will be online social networks creating algorithms that account and weight users’ recommendations which marketers will be able to use to reward the most influential users for mentioning them (ahem… paid posts).

The shocker to Crowley came by way of a Forbes blogger who told him about the FTC regulations. Crowley said hadn’t heard about this and he made a note to bring it up to his legal team. This is a potential complication that could influence not only Foursquare but a lot of other social media platforms and their location based/referral services over the next few years.

Social media can be a powerful way to generate referrals and engage your audience in promoting your service or products. Rewarding visitors is an obvious strategy to get them to take the plunge and promote you to their friends and followers; however, with limited characters available through Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other social media platforms one must wonder how you squeeze in the proper disclosures.

For me, the answer is not including the disclosures in the update / tweet itself, but rather to include an additional feature allowing users to append their updates with the proper disclosure terms. While this might make user interface designers a little uneasy, perhaps the inclusion of such a feature would actually result in more people participating in such programs (I want to earn discounts and free stuff too).

One way or the other, I have no doubt we’ll see more and more social media campaigns which include providing an incentive for the customer to promote products and services with their followers and friends. The only question, is how social media giants will achieve this while staying on the good side of the FTC.

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In Hopes of Becoming Like Facebook, MySpace Apps Also Leak Data

Ask MySpace what he wants to be when he grows up and he’ll tell you flat out – “Facebook.” It’s a typical case of big brother worship and we shouldn’t laugh about it but it’s funny, you know. When the little one tries to dress and sound like his successful big brother. Clomping around in shoes that are too big, hoping his friends will come over and hang with you if you make it easy for them to connect.

But sometimes, idol worship can get you in over your head. Like this week, when The Wall Street Journal caught MySpace leaking user data through apps. Who does that sound like, huh? Who got caught by The Wall Street Journal just a few weeks ago doing the same thing? Facebook.

The data on the MySpace app allows the app owner to get the user id of the players which can lead to them discovering things like the user’s actual MySpace name and photos. You know, the stuff you can see anyway if you visit anyone’s page on MySpace.

I think it’s kind of cute. Little MySpace racing his Big Wheel down the sidewalk after big brother Facebook get’s a ticket for doing 110 in a school zone. Not quite the same impact, but points for effort.

And kudos to The Wall Street Journal (whose parent company owns MySpace) for trying to give their little cousin some street cred. Nice try.

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Congress Has a Few Questions for Facebook

When if comes to privacy, Facebook doesn’t have any. This week, we all got a look at a letter from Congress that was sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers.

Maybe demanding is too strong a word, but the letter, which came from two members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, made it clear that they expected a full response by next week.

Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Joe Barton of Texas make reference to the recent Wall Street Journal article where it was stated that third-party Facebook apps were selling off user information. They follow this with 18 questions which include:

– Did you notify users of this series of breaches, including the specific nature of the information shared without their consent? If not, why not?

– What procedures do you have in place to detect and/or prevent third-party applications that may breach the terms of Facebook’s privacy policy?

– To what extend has Facebook determined that data relating to minors 17 years of age and under were breached?

The gist of the long list of questions is to find out when Facebook knew about the breach, how many people were affected and how they’re going to prevent such an event in the future.

Many of the questions are designed to decide culpability and the specific question about minors makes this more than just your average privacy case.

You can read the full letter from the Congressmen right here.

A company spokesperson for Facebook has said that they’ll be happy to answer the questions and clear up any “confusion” caused by the Wall Street Journal article.

In the meantime, CBS News is reporting that Zynga, the company that runs Farmville, is being sued in federal court for violating a number of privacy acts. Now Facebook is going to have to make a big decision in regard to standing behind their most popular games maker or divorcing themselves from the situation in hopes of being seen as an innocent party.

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Courts Disagree on Expectation of Privacy Regarding Social Media

If you want to know anything about privacy laws, Kashmir Hill from Forbes is your gal. She writes a whole column on it and earlier this week she wrote an interesting piece about two Facebook privacy cases with two very different results.

Both cases involved a person with a Facebook account who was suing a company for something totally unrelated to social media. In California, an artist sued an apparel company for putting his designs on items they hadn’t agreed on, like maybe condoms. Lawyers for the company asked for access to all of the artist’s Facebook and MySpace updates, obviously hoping to catch him saying he was thrilled about being featured on a condom, or something like that.

A federal judge said that request violated the 1986 (?!?) electronic communications law and as long as the artist’s wall page was sent to friends only, then those posts were private and couldn’t be used by the defendant to make their case.

Then we go to New York, where a judge used the same law to back up his decision to force a women to turn over all of her social media posts, including those marked private. The woman claimed she was injured when falling from a defective chair, but the chair manufacturer said, but look at how happy she is on Facebook!

Remember that story that went around last year or so about the woman on medical leave for depression who had her insurance cut off because of party photos on her Facebook?

Looks like we still have a ways to go for the laws to catch up to technology, but what’s to be done in the meantime? I know we’re always preaching that an effective social media strategy involves becoming “friends” with your customers, but sharing stories about a drunken binge or a gambling spree in Vegas, might not be the best way to rack up sales, even if you do work for a liquor company.

The lesson here is that a little paranoia is a good thing. Look at your own personal Facebook account – would it be detrimental to your company if what you posted there was made public? Friends only box checked or not, nothing is private on the internet. Just keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking of mixing social media business with pleasure.

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PR Agency Settles With FTC Over Fake Reviews

Just in case you were wondering there are people out there that are manipulating social media to their advantage. What, you say?! Say it ain’t so! People are always honest when it comes to trying to sell things……right?

Well, of course we all know that trust is a major concern when it comes to social media and the reviews it can generate. Can we trust that the reviewer is being completely objective? Can we trust that the reviewer was not paid to do so or (more innocently?) prodded to do so.

What we can be sure of though is that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is paying attention and can get involved to stop such activities even for those few that actually get caught.

The latest story comes from TG Daily

A public relations agency is to settle with the FTC over charges that its staff posed as members of the public to post fake reviews of video games developed by its clients.

Reverb Communications represents a number of games developers, including Harmonix, creator of Rock Band. The company and its owner, Tracie Snitker, were accused of engaging in deceptive advertising by having staff pose as ordinary consumers to post game reviews.

Between November 2008 and May 2009, Reverb and Snitker posted reviews about their clients’ games at the iTunes store using account names that gave readers the impression the reviews were written by impartial consumers, says the FTC.

They didn’t disclose that they were hired to promote the games and that they often received a percentage of the sales.

Ooooops, our bad!

It’s an extremely safe bet to say that this PR agency is not the first and won’t be the last to do such a thing. Doesn’t make it right but it is the reality of our current way of doing business in a social world that believes just about anything. PT Barnum stated famously that there is “ A sucker born every minute” and the those with less than stellar ethics see this as ‘blood in the water’ and a chance to make a killing.

Of course, as any good PR firm would do they denied the charges but since they decided to settle rather than fight the charges it’s pretty much assumed that they got caught with their hand in the social media cookie jar.

Reverb denied the allegations, claiming that while staff had posted reviews, they’d done so after buying the games with their own money and playing them in their own time.

I would recommend in the future though that you don’t release a statement like the one above because no one will believe it. Sorry, that’s just another reality of this social media age we live in.

Of course, if this report is completely on target (and who can be assured of that?) it may have been the best route to take a settlement since it is reported

Under the proposed settlement, Reverb and Snitker are barred from misrepresenting themselves as ordinary consumers, and from endorsing or making claims about a product or service unless they disclose any relevant connections with the seller.

Wow, the FTC is really bearing their teeth and showing how tough they can on this one. As far as penalties go this is just an after school detention kind of punishment which won’t serve as much of a deterrent for others.

Oh well, looks like it’s just best for the rest of the world to rely on that old adage with a new twist – caveat emptor ‘social mediator’.

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Facebook Gets Sued Over Like Button on Ads

There are ads that I like. Target is always kitschy and catchy. Those Mac vs PC ads are charming and I wish the Gap would go back to those great dance commercials. I really liked those. But when Facebook asks me to “like” a sidebar ad, I find that weird. Two parents in Los Angeles are finding it more than just weird. They say it’s illegal and they’re suing Facebook over it.

According to a report at ClickZ, the case stems from the idea that encouraging  children to “like” an ad, Facebook is, in effect, asking them to use peer pressure to get their friends to click and that’s exploitation of a minor for profit.

In theory, it sounds like it has merit, anytime you pull out kids, profit and privacy, it’s bound to make people nervous. The reality is that this isn’t likely to go far. Like the incident with the Dr. Pepper campaign, Facebook will say that they aren’t aiming the ads at minors and they can’t help it if kids want to click. The other problem is a question of severity. So they give their favorite sneaker brand a thumbs up. It’s not like they’re selling drugs or alcohol to their friends.

I’m all for the protection of children, but honestly, I think kids are smarter than they’re given credit for. They aren’t confused by what’s an ad and what isn’t. And if they have plans to secretly max out mom’s credit card for Farmville bucks, then a thumbs down on an ad isn’t going to stop them.

Finally, with so many major brands running Facebook Fan Pages with games, coupons and discussions, is liking one of those any different than liking an ad in the sidebar?

Lawsuit or not, I don’t think those like buttons are going away anytime soon.

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Facebook’s Quest Continues With Efforts to Trademark the Word “Face”

You read it right. As I noted yesterday, Facebook had become so big and so powerful that they are starting to make Microsoft like moves that make it impossible to not poke fun at them. The efforts to force sites like Teachbook, and possibly others, to stop using book in their names apparently weren’t enough for Facebook. Now it appears as if they are making an effort to trademark the word ‘face’.

In the “you can’t make this crap up category” TechCrunch reports

It is not just the word “book” at the end of a company or product name that Facebook might object to. If it has its way, the word “Face” at the beginning of a name might also bring out its lawyers. In fact, Facebook is currently trying to register the word “Face” as a trademark . (It already owns the trademark on “Facebook” ). Facebook took over the trademark application for “Face” from a company in the UK called CIS Internet Limited, which operated a site calledFaceparty.com . Presumably, Facebook bought the application sometime around November, 2008, which is when its lawyer started dealing with the USPTO.

Last May Facebook had settled with Aaron Greenberg about the Facebook trademark and this latest move has brought Greenberg out of the woodwork again. He has a company called FaceCash and this is great time to get some free exposure, ooops, I mean come to the aid of others like him who could be affected by Facebook’s patenting of many of the basic words in the English language.

If Facebook gets the trademark for the word “Face,” that could spell trouble for FaceCash. “The possible registration has implications for my company (not to mention hundreds of others, including Apple, Inc.), so I’ve decided to ask the USPTO for an extension of time to oppose it,” (Greenberg) explains in an email. Apple, of course, owns the trademark to Facetime the video calling feature on the latest iPhones.

So there really isn’t anything else to say other than I wonder what Facebook is really thinking? I don’t know but one gets the feeling that the move to 1 billion users seems more about power for Facebook than it is about empowerment of its users.

Be sure to enjoy what may be limited time using the words ‘face’ and ‘book’ without Facebook’s permission. Maybe one day the Facebook chip implanted in account holders will give a little electrical shock when they step out of line and say something that could be reminiscent of a normal conversation that was once part of the public domain.

Ah yes, isn’t social media great?

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Attention Internet Folks: Facebook Apparently Owns the Word “Book”

In the category of “Why should this even surprise anyone?”, Facebook is working hard to shut down any social networking service that is incorporating the word “book” into their name.

Over at Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog it reports on a small start-up called Teachbook that is either delusional or just milking as much publicity as they can out of their moment in the muted spotlight of the Internet.

Social-networking upstart Teachbook said Wednesday it would challenge a trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Facebook, which is demanding the teacher-oriented site remove “book” from its name.

This is a popular pastime of Facebook’s legal team

Facebook, in a lawsuit Threat Level reported on Tuesday, claims the term “book” cannot be used to name social-networking sites. The Palo Alto-based site claims Teachbook might dilute its famous name or cause confusion over which is the real Facebook.

Facebook doesn’t seem to be focused solely on social-networking sites, either. It leveraged its financial weight earlier this month to demand an upstart travel site to rename itself from Pricebook.

This seems so silly that it reminded of an ‘article’ that made me fall in love with The Onion way back in 1998. The title of the ‘article’ was “Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes”. If you would like to have some retro Internet fun go back and read it.

So should Disney be concerned that Facebook will try to set a legal precedent and sue them for using the Term “Jungle Book”? Will Facebook use its special powers to make its ownership of anything using the word ‘book’ retroactive throughout all of time with the claim that these companies should have known that Markie and the Zucks would exist in the future and rule the planet? Should Rudyard Kipling’s estate brace itself as well?

We are getting pretty close to the point where Facebook turns into Microsoft and starts to lampoon itself with stupid corporate tricks that make us mere mortals shake our heads and ask that popular Internet question “WTH?” (feel free to insert your version of this here but we try to keep a PG-13 rating here at MP).

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Facebook Blocks Twitter. Is a Lawsuit Next?

Just minutes after Twitter announced a feature to see which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter, Facebook blocked it!

Now, thanks to Techdirt, we can see that this is not just some harmless mistake. Facebook does not want you having access to the data you’ve worked hard to compile. In other words, if you try to access any of your Facebook data via a 3rd-party app then the social network won’t just block you, it may sue you!

We’ve been following the rather bizarre and dangerous lawsuit filed by Facebook against Power.com, an online service that tries to let users aggregate various social networking activity into a single service. All Power.com does is let a willing user have Power.com’s tools log into Facebook and reuse/reformat the data within its own framework. From a user’s perspective, this could be quite useful. From Facebook’s perspective this is both a violation of copyright law and a violation of computer hacking laws. Why? Because Facebook says so. That is, it says so in its terms of service, and it’s arguing that in ignoring the terms of service, Power.com is criminally hacking.

And, that is exactly what Twitter just attempted to do with its new feature!

Two questions are now raised?

1. Will Facebook sue Twitter? Doubtful, but if the company allows Twitter to have this kind of access, does it weaken its case against Power.com?

2. Did you know that you can’t use another service to access what’s really your own data anyway?

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