Court OKs using Facebook for serving lien
Friday, December 19, 2008 at 4:12 am
Global social networking Web sites are threatened with turning a little more anti-social after a court in Australia ruled a mortgage lender can use Facebook to break the news to a couple that they have lost their home.
Some people are concerned that such court-approved contact with their social networks such as Facebook and MySpace could amount to a violation of privacy.
Lawyers say they cannot recall a precedent for the 12 December ruling in Canberra’s local Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court that allowed lender MKM Capital to use Facebook to serve legal documents after weeks of failed attempts to contact borrowers Gordon Poyser and Carmel Corbo at their Canberra home and by e-mail.
Australian courts have given permission for people to be served via e-mail and text messages when it was not possible to serve them in person. The lender’s lawyer, Mark McCormack, said that by the time he got the documents approved by the court for transmission, Facebook profiles for the couple had disappeared.
The page was apparently either closed or secured for privacy, following publicity about the court order. Despite the court approving the Internet contact on the basis of the lawyers’ exhausted attempts to reach the couple, The Associated Press found Poyser, 62, on Tuesday at home at the contested address.
He declined to comment on the case, citing the couple’s stress of losing their home of seven years. But he said he had privacy restrictions imposed on his Facebook page only because of the media attention.
Despite the setback, McCormack said the Facebook attempt would help his client’s case that all reasonable steps had been taken to serve the couple. A court is expected to settle the matter as early as next week.
( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)
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