On May 26, 2010, the court in Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc. quashed portions of subpoenas seeking the disclosure of private messages sent through Facebook and MySpace. The court left open the question of whether Crispin’s wall postings and comments should be disclosed pending a more thorough review of his online privacy settings.
On February 10, 2010, defendants in the copyright infringement case subpoenaed the social networking sites for wall postings and private messages from plaintiff Crispin’s accounts. Crispin filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, asserting that the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) prohibited the disclosure. The SCA generally prohibits an entity that provides an “electronic communication service” (“ECS”) or a “remote computing service” (“RCS”) to the public from disclosing the contents of certain communications that are carried, maintained or stored on that service.
Read more about the case and its implications on Hunton & Williams LLP