Findlaw explains how your social networking postings may become subject to discovery in litigation.
Eric Sinrod writes (excerpt):
In the case of Romano v. Steelcase, a New York judge ruled that defendant Steelcase was entitled in discovery to access the plaintiff’s current and historical Facebook and MySpace pages and accounts, including previously deleted information, on the basis that information to be found there could prove to be inconsistent with her claims of injuries and loss of enjoyment of life.
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The judge also ruled in favor of Steelcase’s discovery requests because “the primary purpose” of social networking sites “is to enable people to share information about how they lead their social lives,” notwithstanding how they “self-set privacy controls” on such sites. This conclusion was buttressed for the judge by the fact that both Facebook and MySpace state explicitly on their sites that they cannot guarantee the privacy of users’ posted content.