Your privacy settings on Facebook or My Space may determine when a third-party can subpoena electronic communications from your Facebook or My Space page. In the copyright infringement case, Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc. et. al., the defendants served subpoenas on a number of
third-party entitites, to include the social networking providers Facebook and MySpace, Inc., seeking basic subscriber information and communicaitons relating to the case.
We often wonder how private, “private” really is. Here “private” apparently does matter. The privacy settings in the case will determine the extent to which Facebook and My Space comments are accessible to the other party in litigation and can be obtained by subpoena.