Do You Know What You're Agreeing to Online?
With the landmark trial of Lori Drew complete—she was acquitted of the more serious felonies but convicted of misdemeanor violations—terms of use issues still have legal experts all abuzz.
It’s not that there’s anything all that new about terms of use, except that they are everywhere that Internet users want to be. And violations abound with very little policing. At least that was the case before the unusual Drew cyberbullying case.
Drew was tried under the novel theory that she violated MySpace’s terms of use when she, her daughter and Drew’s former employee created a fake account, pretended to be a 16-year-old boy and harassed a neighbor girl. The girl, Megan Meier committed suicide after a heated exchange in 2006.
For the most part, legal experts interviewed for an article posted Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch concluded that terms of use agreements are fairly mundane.
But there are exceptions.
The Post-Dispatch noted some terms to watch:
• World of Warcraft players risk being banned from the game if they sell any of their virtual property for real money, which gives game owner, Blizzard Entertainment, the right to fight the increasingly troublesome issue of buying and selling of virtual game items.
• MySpace users agree not to post a photo of another person without the individual’s consent.
• PayPal users agree to file any suits in Santa Clara, Calif., or Omaha, Neb.
