I picked up an old Newsweek and flipped through it in a waiting room recently. Much of the news was old and pretty uninteresting, but I did find one article worth reading - Friends Under the Microscope. It introduced me to Spokeo, which helps you find and track all of your friends and their social networking content from one Web site. With your permission, Spokeo goes through your e-mail address books and finds public content belonging to all of your friends from sites like MySpace, Friendster, Pandora, and Amazon. I was terrified but intrigued. What did I have out there? What did my family and friends, who are fairly conservative when it comes to social networking, have out there?
When I got home, I checked it out, and Spokeo did not disappoint. It found information about people that I didn't know existed and, in some situations, would be better off not knowing. However, I do know exactly what to get several of my co-workers for Christmas gifts next year. Someone is really going to enjoy that skydiver action figure.
Using Spokeo made me feel a little like I was spying on people, so I didn't keep my account. But this is an important Web site that the legal aid and pro bono community needs to know about. It has the potential to both positively and negatively affect clients.
First of all, domestic violence advocates need to know that tracking information about a person across many different Web sites has become much easier. Domestic violence survivors need to be aware that, if their abusers know their e-mail address, the abusers can quickly and easily track MySpace posts, Amazon wish lists, and so on. Survivors and their children who post information on these sites could unknowingly give away information that may identify their location.
Secondly, legal aid advocates need to know that this tool could play an important role in their cases. They may want to use Spokeo to find evidence about what the other side is up to on and offline. When dealing with child custody case, wouldn't it be interesting to know that the other side is posting comments promoting casual drug use or pictures doing a keg stand? Could that change the outcome of the case? And those same legal aid advocates need to remember that the other side might be doing the same type of investigation. For more information about the impact that the Internet and social networking can have on your client's case, check out Judy Wilson's session from the Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant Conference.
To me, Spokeo is just another reminder that the Internet may make me feel anonymous, but I'm not. - K
