2 replies to this topic

[Chad]

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/fac...us-experts-say/

When The Pirate Bay released new Facebook features last month, the popular social networking site took evasive action, blocking its members from distributing file-sharing links through its service.

Now legal experts say Facebook may have gone too far, blocking not only links to torrents published publicly on member profile pages, but also examining private messages that might contain them, and blocking those as well.

“This raises serious questions about whether Facebook is in compliance with federal wiretapping law,” said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, responding to questions from a reporter about the little-noticed policy that was first reported by TorrentFreak.

Facebook private messages are governed by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which forbids communications providers from intercepting user messages, barring limited exceptions for security and valid legal orders.

[Dave]

The only thing that didn't surprise me about that post was that Wired didn't editorialize, "companies electronically snooping on people is sweet! All hail Google! Don't forget to check out our next issue in which our pompous designers have made it more difficult than ever to read the text and follow the story."

[Deb]

One can only hope this brings about the death of facebook.