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A Los Angeles federal judge has delayed the sentencing of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. Sentencing for Lori Drew was rescheduled to July 2.
A Missouri mother should serve three years in prison for her role in a MySpace hoax on a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed Wednesday.
With MySpace falling behind Facebook as the world’s largest online social network, MySpace tapped a former Facebook executive Friday as its new chief executive. Owen Van Natta, 39, replaces Chris DeWolfe, a co-founder of MySpace, who stepped down as chief executive Wednesday. News Corp., which owns MySpace, said Van Natta’s new role begins immediately. – from Yahootech
A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com, charges that could force her to register as a sex offender if convicted.
What do you get when you combine leading people search technology and the personal data of 50 million+ users? A REALLY, REALLY, BAD idea called mylife.com — a rebranded version of reunion.com profiles linked to personal data from wink.com.
Why should you care? Your reunion.com profile information is now property of the largest online privacy data reseller. That’s right, the company holding your mylife profile is the same company that can sells personal information about the value of your home, your credit history and more (including satellite photos)!
They collect your personal data
A mylife.com profile (formerly reunion.com profile) includes all the elements of your reunion.com profile AND MORE: name, address, email addresses, high school, year graduated, biggest influence, can’t live without, could live without, hopes & dreams, favorite quote, sense of humor, 20+ personal characteristics, personality type, favorite movies, favorite music, favorite books, favorite tv shows, favorite travel spots, favorite sports, favorite hobbies, Facebook connections, MySpace connections, LinkedIn connections and your personal photo.
They sell your personal data
Wink.com (the same company) sells personal data including: a people search report for $1.95 that includes full name, address, phone number, age, date of birth and possible relationships; a $19.95 monthly membership with unlimited access to people search reports plus property information, death records, marriage records, divorce records and reverse phone lookup; and a $39.95 background report with all other information plus, aliases & maiden names, birth date, address history, property ownership information, relatives & neighbors and ‘much more”!
They own your personal data
Privacy concerns about the merger of reunion.com and wink.com into mylife are well founded. According to their user agreement, “you are licensing to MyLife.com and our third party service providers any ‘content’ you provide through or to MyLife.com and the service they offer. MyLife.com may modify, display, distribute and create new material using such content on MyLife.com’s Sites for the promotion and marketing of our services and the operation of our system.”
Want to know what you can do you? Read more
Really, do you know ANYONE that is using Myspace anymore? Other than your hillbilly cousin Justin? Oh wait, Justin is still on Friendster — but he’s thinking of opening a Bebo account…
But I also asked Coelho if he uses Facebook, and what he thinks of it. He said that he loves Facebook too. When I pressed as to which site was his favorite, he said “I love MySpace like a wife, I’ve been there for a long time. But Facebook is my mistress.” – from Techcrunch
The mother of a Mo. girl who killed herself after receiving mean messages online says she couldn’t look at the defendant as jurors read the verdict. Lori Drew was found guilty of misdemeanor charges of accessing computers without authorization. (Dec. 1)
Lock her up for good — there is no goodness in Lori Drew. Max sentence.
The saga of the MySpace suicide case is not yet over. Tina Meier, the mother of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old who hanged herself in response to cruel messages sent as part of a hoax, will press for the maximum charges against Lori Drew, 49, who was convicted by a jury of three misdemeanor counts of computer fraud, according to AP.
If the jury throws the book at Drew, she faces three years in prison and a $300,000 fine.
But Drew’s attorney has said he will ask the judge to overturn the verdict. That’s an option used only for verdicts a judge finds to be devoid of “legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury” to find as they did. So I think the odds of this are pretty bad, especially considering the jury knocked the charges down from felonies.
- from ZDnet
Few online events have ended as horrifically as the Lori Drew case. Befriended by a boy on MySpace who later began bullying her, a teenager named Megan Meier hung herself, and her online friend later turned out to be the mother of a school classmate, who created the persona specifically to torment the young girl. Lori Drew was found not guilty of conspiracy on Tuesday, but guilty of a lesser misdemeanor charge as a result of setting up the fake persona, which the court decided was a case of “unauthorized access” to the social networking site (under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), because it was in breach of MySpace’s terms of service.
- from GigaOm
The mother of a girl who committed suicide at age 13 after being subjected to an Internet hoax says a woman’s conviction in the case shows that people who bully others online will face consequences.
Lori Drew, 49, of O’Fallon, Mo., was convicted Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles on misdemeanor charges of accessing computers without authorization in a landmark cyberbullying trial, though her lawyer said he still hopes a judge will dismiss the charges against her. – from AP
A jury has convicted a Missouri mother of lesser, misdemeanor crimes in the MySpace cyber-bullying case linked to a 13-year-old girl’s suicide.