The Long Arm Of The Law Reaches Facebook

Though it's only "down under" now, that Facebook is now a sanctioned venue for serving legal documents adds yet another imprimatur of legitimacy to social networking and raises questions.Process servers don't have any easy task, but they now have another tool for serving legal documents -- at least in Australia. An Aussie court approved using Facebook to notify a couple that they had lost their home after defaulting on the mortgage. Australian courts had previously allowed people to be served via e-mail or text messages when serving papers in person wasn't possible.

The Facebook option was sanctioned by the court only after other methods of serving were exhausted and there's no indication of when (or if) "poking" someone of Facebook will carry the weight "you've been served." However, with 140 million users, the courts turning to Facebook merely reflect the growing reach of social networks and their legitimacy.

But legitimacy carries with it other concerns and raises questions worth considering. Subpoenas for e-mail are now common in legal proceedings -- it stands to reason that social networks will become a rote step in legal discovery. When you accept a friend invitation, does that mean you're on the hook to be deposed if that person is ever on trial? Time to rethink that friends list perhaps.

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