Lawyers: Talk Don't Stalk!

Interesting little bit of accreting web 2.0 law - the Philadelphia Bar Association, from March 2009, has issued an "ethics" opinion on whether it is legitinate to find out about what potential witnesses say on sites like Facebook by getting "sockpuppets" to Friend them. No, said the distinguished Bar, unsuprisingly - you should Friend them yourself and ask them to speak. Duplicity is not the way to acquire evidence.

Obvious but good to hear it said, in the endlessly scammed world of the anonymous/pseudonymous social networking scene.

Interesting quote at the end of the article:

"Facebook and MySpace profiles are different from public spaces where one can freely film and record others, the opinion says, because an invitation is required to access them, notes a Social Media Today post on the opinion."

Hmm. So Facebook users are a bit like vampires then? That figures.. (I'm sorry, vampire lawyers are on my mind bexause they're what I think of everytime someone mentions Wolfram Alpha, which is about every 10.2 seconds at the moment. is no one else thusly afflicted? Clue: think of Angels.)

As a light relief intro to the Bank Holiday Weekend, which Pangloss is really, really looking forward`to spending in sunny Sunningdale, a cartoon courtesy of Matthias Klang, for all my PhD readers out there :).