2008-05-16

Are terms of service now the law?

A woman has been indicted on 4 felony counts for using Myspace account she created with a fake name to harass a young girl (a former friend of her daughter) who then killed herself based on the harassment.

Obviously, this woman is not a good person, but no laws were broken.  At most, simple harassment, which is not even a misdemeanor in most states.

Federal prosecutors are now trying to stretch the law to say that if you violate the Terms of Service (TOS) of a website or online service, that in itself could be a criminal act.  In this case, part of their indictment hinges on the fact that the accused used a fake name for the MySpace account.  

So what the prosecutors are saying is that if a website tells you to use your real name, and you enter an alias, you are breaking the law.  This reading of the law is rediculous.  Websites have all kinds of crazy TOS's.  Some say that you cannot even send a link to the website to a friend.  Should that be a criminal act too?

I feel bad that a young girl lost her life, but we should not be giving any company the right to make new laws by updating their website.  

FYI - Google, who hosts this blog, actually has a very reasonable Terms of Service.  You can view it here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree. That's the govt's job.