Social Networking: Whether Private Communications Discoverable

In the USA there has recently been judicial consideration of whether private communications sent via a social networking site (for example, Facebook, MySpace) or hosted on the web are protected from being disclosed by legislation.

In an article posted to Mondaq Wendy Blacker and Greg Moss of Gadens Lawyers, Sydney discuss the District Court of California decision in Buckley H. Crispin v Christian Audigier, Inc which “found that social networking sites and web hosting providers fall within the Stored Communications Act protection from disclosure. As such, the Court ruled that civil parties seeking to discover private electronic communications from such sites will likely be prevented from doing so”. The article also considers what the position might be in Australia.

Should stored private communications be accessible?