Comments on: Facebook 'pokes' can be used for court notification

Legal experts said that there's no reason Facebook messages can't be used to deliver official notice of lawsuits, which a court in Australia recently allowed.

[Orion Blastar]

Facebooks Pokes to deliver a lawsuit? The Three Stooges must be laughing now. "Disorder in the Court" was one of my favorite episodes.

[aka_tripleB]

They're going to get a lot of people that don't show up for their court date. With the proliferation of spam and fake e-mail, I can see many people dismissing summons as hoaxes, if they even get it in the first place.

[lordmorgul]

The interesting point in that case is that the couple has done everything in their power to AVOID getting this information from the court; its not just a 'hey we did not notice' issue... its a 'catch us if you can' issue. They clearly could have received proper notice by other means if they were interested in doing so, and for the judge to approve this makes good sense under those circumstances.

[jm7674]

Surely you jest? What about those of us who do not belong to Facebook. Better yet, what about those who do not even own a computer?

[sythara]

Then you'll be contacted through conventional means... And what do you mean "those of us...", obviously you have a computer.

[patch991]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Facebook has any kind of non-repudiation mechanism. So if I am served by a lawer/courts, how can they prove that I received it?

[sythara]

I've read this artcle on another news site and it made a reference to facebook being an "additional" way to contact someone. As in they send you a letter, call you and leave a message, email you, and superpoke you on facebook. Not just

[Pete Bardo]

Sure am glad I violated Facebooks TOS and used a fake name.... Oops, I just admitted to committing a felony ;)

[Harrison912]

Although I do have a social life on FaceBook, I'm typically t here to socially market my safety and security web site. I'd hate to see this practice become popular with the courts. Some people would probably drop their FaceBook accounts just to avoid being served.

[sythara]

If they are hiding from the courts already, dropping a facebook account (which is a commercial service, not governmental agency) won't really accomplish anything. I think the real purpose of this is to give people a "heads up" that something is incoming in the mail. I check my mail maybe once a week, but email several times a day including on a my phone. I sure would like to know if I have a court summons coming up before I view the letter.

If I want to hide from courts, I'd just ignore the "poke" or email, or the letter, or that phone call, or the cops knocking on my door.

[RicABlair]

IMH(nonlegal)O The key is "reasonably calculated to reach the defendant." It really doesn't matter if the recipient ignores the summons because s/he thinks it's bogus. If s/he gets it, s/he has been served. The key is whether in fact s/he, the intended recipient, actually receives notice. The woman in the MySpace case created a fake entry and pretended to be a boy to harass a girl who ultimately committed suicide. The lesson is that a fake entry can be easily created; someone can set up a fake Facebook entry for Jack Sprat and the real Jack who doesn't own a PC would never know he had been served. Service via Facebook is per se unreasonable until such entries can be verified as genuine.