LaRussa Twitter Case Still Up In The Air; Ours Moves Forward
June 8th, 2009 by Don TannerDepending on who you speak with or what you read, Twitter has reached a settlement with St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa—or not. Scores of individuals sympathetic to our continued push for Twitter justice, send us links to the latest.
The thing is, we’re not suing Twitter. After conducting proper due diligence and research into case law and precedents, our talented legal team recognized from the beginning that that was not the way to go. Rather, as has been reported—including in recent days in Crain’s, Detroit News and WWJ’s Great Lakes IT Report—we’re going after the person (”John Doe”) who perpetuated a fraudulent agency Twitter page with intent to impugn, seeking their name and the right to our page.
Subsequent to this news coverage a federal judge allowed our claim to move forward and, following that, Twitter has been served with a subpoena. We will have a response in the next several days. Are we worried about alerting this perpetrator to what is next? (after all, they obviously read our stuff closely). Not at all.
We are quite hopeful that, in the end, this exercise will set a precedent and serve as a deterrent against such individuals (those with no respect for media nor truthful, honest communications) doing this to others in the future. This person thought they could hide behind the anonymity that a computer screen often provides. They were mistaken.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Your valiant, vital crusade against cyber piracy clearly is the leading edge of a legal frontier.
Even Twitter itself acknowledges a need for corrective action, though it just tiptoes forward with baby steps.
“We do recognize an opportunity to improve Twitter user experience and clear up confusion beyond simply removing impersonation accounts once alerted,” says the company’s latest blog post. The answer, for now, is to offer Verified Account status to “public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation.”
Businesses? Not yet . . . “However, we do see an opportunity in that arena.”
Ya’ think?
June 9th, 2009 at 7:11 am
A precedent clearly is needed as courts and lawmakers catch up with a new form of fraud.
Legislators in Texas last week passed an “online harassment” bill making it a crime to impersonate people on social media sites. If Gov. Rick Perry signs it, creating phony profiles on social networking sites with the intent to “harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten” would be a felony.
More on that today in Online Media Daily: http://bit.ly/4H6w
Your ‘John Doe’ fraudster may be lucky not to live in Texas.