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Australian Court Lets Lawyer Serve Papers Via Facebook
a302b writes "A Canberra lawyer has been permitted to serve legal documents via Facebook for a couple who defaulted on a loan. He claims he needed to do this because he was unable to track them down to a physical address. At what point does our online presence become 'real?' And what opportunities are available for fraud, if social networking sites are considered legal representations of ourselves, even when they can be anonymously created under any name?"
Actually, there is a difference. In general, you are pretty certain who an e-mail address goes to.
If the ISP is contacted to obtain a person's e-mail address, they can definitely provide the info, they can also match the user up with customer billing records. This information is fairly unlikely to be fake.
With e-mail, your address may also be exchanged in advance, i.e. through some other means of communication, so the person serving can show solid evidence that the e-mail address belongs to the person.
I.e. if the legal matter concerns copyright material posted on blah.example.com, and the WHOIS info for that domain lists the e-mail address, then there is PROOF that the e-mail address is provided by a person who controls the domain.
However, with facebook, the target party is found by a simple search for their name and (possibly geography).
Since multiple people have the same name, even in the same area, it is unreasonable to expect you have verifiably served the right person.
You may have accidentally sent the information to the wrong profile.
Also, the purpose of facebook (for many users) is simply to display profile information.
Many users don't expect to receive messages of any sort, so they don't check them.
This is in stark contrast to an e-mail service whose sole purpose is to receive messages, and is effective, so long as the account is not abandoned.
You'd probably be pretty confident that you'd found the right people hey?
Well, I'd be confident that I'd found someone claiming to be the right people.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I wouldn't be so sure. Here in little nowhere AR I had to argue with a bank and several other businesses that I wasn't some other guy. Finally I tracked him down and we went together to straighten it out since he TOO had been getting stuff that was for ME. When we sat down together it turned out we had the same first and last names, our fathers and mothers had the same first and last names and the same middle initials. And to top it off his sister had the same name as mine(which my mom made up) so he called his mom and it turned out she was having his sister in the same hospital at the same time my mom was having mine, and when she overheard my mom talking with the nurses about the made up name she thought it was cute and named her girl the same!
So while I am sure that this lawyer probably has the right people, never underestimate the power of coincidence. After all if two people whose families have never met face to face could have so much in common in a little place like AR, imagine how many similar couples or families there could be on something as large as FB?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
For the record - I don't think anything other than in person should be a legal way to serve, but email is not superior to Facebook.
Why?
Personal service is preferred, and process servers go to extreme and often comical lengths to put the paper in your hand, but some people refuse to accept service. Should you have to continue a manhunt for a year, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, in order to exercise your legal rights? How would you feel if someone potentially owed you thousands or millions of dollars and you couldn't get it because they wouldn't open the door?
Like all forms of service other than personal service, it's a last resort after a documented showing of diligence. At some point, you're intentionally avoiding being served, because letters and messages have been left for you, and if that's the case, the notice function of service has been fulfilled. Like everything else in law, it's a balancing of competing needs. You also always have the opportunity to fight a default judgment if you can legitimately demonstrate that the dozens of attempted services were missed because you were actually, truly not available.
As you can imagine, the chances of you disappearing from society and leaving no trace of how to contact you with employers, neighbors, family, and friends is fairly small...unless you're running from something.