prosecutors in California have just charged 47-year-old Lori Drew under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for creating a fictitious MySpace account
The alleged facts of the case are appalling. Ms Drew is claimed to have driven a 13 year old friend of her daughter to suicide by befriending, then rejecting her while pretending to be a 16 year old boy.
she has been charged with "accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress", because she broke MySpace's terms of use, which forbid "impersonating or attempting to impersonate another Member, person or entity" and "using any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person or entity, or attempting to do the same".
The prosecution may yet be thrown out of court, and, even if not, is unlikely to have a wide-ranging scope. But it may set a worrying precedent.
But the prosecution raises wider issues that should concern any computer user...since it opens up the possibility that acts which we thought were insignificant could be used against us in unexpected ways.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress is a rarely successful tort, and, even if successful, would result only in damages being payable.
Given the alleged facts of the case, it's easy to see why the prosecution is desperate to put her on trial, and, if found guilty, into jail, by any statute possible.
The concern is that the precedent could be used in a wider context.
