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Doing the Right Thing Online

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FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod  writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

So often we hear about bad conduct on the Internet, be it identity theft, distributed denial of service attacks, or online defamation and character assassination.  Well, how about a feel-good story?  Some people actually do the right thing online.  Indeed, blogging now is emerging as a philanthropic force.

Take, for example, Bloganthropy.org, an Internet site which seeks to harness the power of social media to incorporate giving resources.  Its mission is to unite companies and bloggers in an effort to address societal needs.

Facebook Use Down Under

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FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

You probably know already that Facebook is a huge social networking phenomenon here in the United States, not only for teenagers, but also for adults. However, you might not know that the Facebook rage is sweeping the globe.

For example, Facebook use way down under in Australia is a large component of online activity.

Indeed, according to recent press reports and Nielsen Online, Australians each spend 6.5 of their 26.5 weekly online hours on Facebook. That is an incredible ¼ of all online time for Australians.

Own Your Tweets, You Earned Them.

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Twitter announced this week that it has clarified its Terms of Service regarding what users can expect from the microblogging service.  Of importance to legal tech enthusiasts, is the delineation of ownership of the tweets--or 140-character posts--that users posts.  It's confirmed, they belong to the author.

Could this enable users to copyright their tweets?

It is a possibility; however, at just 140 characters, it will remain to be seen whether there is enough content to establish a protectable copyright claim.  However, considering that poetry such as haikus could fit in a tweet and that users are becoming more accustomed and creative with expressing themselves within the constraints of a microblog, the relationship between copyright and Twitter is at best grey. 

5 Ways Law Firms Can Market With Social Media

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Social media has changed the game of marketing.  It makes a firm more accessible to its clients and potential clients.  And it allows a firm practicing in a niche specialty to inform and engage the legal and general community about particular areas of law.  And where an attorney and firm's time is limited by hours in the day and existing caseloads, social media features give your firm a virtual presence even when an actual presence is not possible.

And though law firms are advised to think critically about possibly privacy concerns before jumping into the social media pool, fear of water shouldn't keep a firm from swimming.  The potential benefits a law firm can reap from being active in social media are still being discovered.  Here are five ways your firm can make the most of social media.

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

A Web site ideally is "sticky."  This means that the site attracts consumers who visit frequently and spend significant time and hopefully money on the site.  

Even better, the site also caters to so many of a consumer's needs and interests in a given space that the consumer will not go elsewhere on the Internet.

Along comes www.MakeItPro.com, as an example.  According to its press release, MakeItPro has just launched "the world's only online, interactive all-sport destination, marketplace and resource center for athletes and fans of more than 175 sports worldwide."

3 Questions in Determining Liability in #Twittergate

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Does Twitter Have Legal Claims for the Hacking and Posting Confidential Company Documents?

In an interesting development for Twitter, French hacker "Hacker Croll" recently compromised confidential information of the Silicon Valley microblogging phenomenon's top executives.  The security breach didn't end there, in fact after the hacker used simple techniques to gain access to the execs' Google accounts, he then retrieved more than 300 private documents stored on Google Docs and emailed the same to various tech news outlets.  TechCrunch, one of the highly-trafficked sites that was emailed, has already started posting some of the documents online.

The events that have unfolded in Iran following the contested presidential election have transfixed the world.  Much of the information that has come out of (and into) the country has traveled over social media services as a result of censorship and blocking of communications systems by the government. 

The crisis in Iran has allowed Twitter, the microblogging service, to mature into a legitimate and important communication tool.  Twitter has played such a prominent role in allowing mobilization and documentation of the Iranian opposition that the US State Department at one point even asked the company to put off a scheduled maintenance so that Iranians could continue using the service.
Eric Goldman, author of the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, has written a nice post detailing the Ninth Circuit's changes to the opinion it released last month in Barnes v. Yahoo.

As many of you may recall, the Ninth Circuit declared that Yahoo! was not responsible for the publication of fake profiles on its site (thanks to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act), but also kept the suit alive to determine whether Yahoo! was liable to the plaintiff under a theory of promissory estoppel after a Yahoo representative allegedly promised to remove the profiles but never did.
The days of the lawless internet are long gone, and we all have cyberlaws that we wish didn't exist or would like to see changed.  Now, one group has come out swinging against internet laws in the works that it sees as counter to the interest of online businesses.

NetChoice, a group supported by AOL, Yahoo, eBay, Oracle and other online companies, has published its iAWFUL (Internet Advocates' Watchlist for Ugly Laws) list of the top ten worst proposed laws affecting ecommerce and open communications. 

The list, which includes mostly state legislation, attacks laws that the group believes "
threaten to undermine the foundation of the free and open Internet." 
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section about legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

Last week, I told you about how college admissions offices are considering the social networking pages of prospective applicants.  I now am here to report that social networking is not a passing fancy; indeed, the time spent by Americans on social networking sites is increasing dramatically.  And, of course, where people go, the law will follow.

According to a recent report from Nielsen Online, the time that Americans spend on social networking sites is up a staggering 83% from just one year ago.