Sixteen-year-old Megan Meier killed herself when she received cruel messages from an online friend, 16-year-old Josh Evans, through MySpace. It then emerged that Evans had never existed but was an online alter ego created by Lori Drew, a 49-year-old woman.
State authorities initially investigated the incident but found no laws on which to launch any action against Drew. Federal prosecutors, though, launched an action based on MySpace's terms and conditions.
In order to send messages to Meier, they argued, Drew would have had to sign up to MySpace, providing false information to create an account for the fictional Josh Evans. That would have involved giving at least a fake name and date of birth, both banned under the terms and conditions.
Prosecutors said that because her activity was conducted in violation of the terms and conditions of the site, it became unauthorised use of the service.
A federal grand jury in California has indicted Drew on charges of conspiracy and on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to get information used to inflict emotional distress on Meier, Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors are expected to argue at trial that a violation of MySpace's terms and conditions can be extrapolated into an offence.
Reference:
http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=9140
State authorities initially investigated the incident but found no laws on which to launch any action against Drew. Federal prosecutors, though, launched an action based on MySpace's terms and conditions.
In order to send messages to Meier, they argued, Drew would have had to sign up to MySpace, providing false information to create an account for the fictional Josh Evans. That would have involved giving at least a fake name and date of birth, both banned under the terms and conditions.
Prosecutors said that because her activity was conducted in violation of the terms and conditions of the site, it became unauthorised use of the service.
A federal grand jury in California has indicted Drew on charges of conspiracy and on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to get information used to inflict emotional distress on Meier, Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors are expected to argue at trial that a violation of MySpace's terms and conditions can be extrapolated into an offence.
Reference:
http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=9140
1 comments:
This Drew woman is a guilty person who obviously has no understanding of acceptable behavior.
But in one hand it was a suicide, not a murder. The decision to kill herself was the girl's alone. In the other hand, It's a threat to freedom and democracy because she didn't get convicted for what she said to the girl, but she got convicted for using a computer while providing inaccurate personal information to the provider. If she had done the same thing using a telephone she couldn't have been charged with anything. The only reason she got charged in this case is because prosecutors abused a computer fraud statue. It is disgusting
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