Just like conducting Westlaw or Lexis due diligence on an individual, social networking sites need to be reviewed as part of discovery protocol when seeking to obtain relevant information concerning a person or entity. Such searches should not be limited to being performed only in connection with personal injury litigations, but equally should extend, for example, to commercial, product liability, intellectual property, restrictive covenant, and employment disputes.
Facebook and MySpace are not “friends” of litigants who would no doubt want to keep the contents of their social network postings private. And as the recent trial court decision in Romano v. Steelcase Inc.[FOOTNOTE 1] makes clear, not only may a court require a person to execute an authorization providing for a social networking site to produce one’s so-called “public” postings, but a court also may require such authorization to extend to private posts not accessible to the public, as well as to deleted and archived posts stored by the site.
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