Privacy Just Isn't What It Used To Be

If you don't already know, you should before it's too late. What you post on the internets, even if you only intend it for a select audience, such as your MySpace or Facebook friends, is open for the all the world to read and republish, so says the California Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal. On April 2, 2009, the Court in Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel Inc. held that it was not an invasion of privacy for the local newspaper in Coalinga, California to print a rant against the small town that a college student who had grown up in Coalinga had posted on her MySpace page. The Court had absolutely no sympathy for the argument that her posting was only intended for the select group of "friends" allowed access to her space. The Court found that "Cynthia's affirmative act made her article available to any person with a computer and, thus, opened it to the public eye. Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material, noting that the "potential audience was vast."

It seems as if it should go without saying that, of course, once you post something on the internet, it is available to the whole world. It appears from the circumstances of this case and other horror stories that some of us don't think about what use others may make of what we post. Take, for example, a second year law student interviewing for summer clerkships who posted in his Facebook page that he was going to another clerkship interview that day and was going to lie his way through yet another one. That post was picked up by another law student who was horrified and passed the post along to the interviewer. As it turns out, it was apparently said tongue in cheek and was a cynical reference to the interviewing process that the student and his regular friends understood. That might have completely sunk this student's chances to land that summer clerkship or others.

With many of us beginning to use these business and social networking sites more and more, we should remember that what you may intend with a posting may not be what is picked up by someone you don't even know reading your post. Or, your post may be republished somewhere you did not intend for it to appear. This is especially true with the Web 2.0 internet: blogs, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. We may think that only certain "users" are viewing particular kinds of postings that we create. But, the truth is, we have to assume that any one in the world in any sphere we operate may view what we post on the internet. There is no privacy on the internet. That should become our number one mantra we were are engaged in this medium.