Technology news and Jobs 
VIRTUALISATION British High Court allows injunction by Twitter
VIRTUALISATION British High Court allows injunction by Twitter | British High Court allows injunction by Twitter |
|
| by Stephen Withers | |
| Monday, 05 October 2009 | |
  
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
The target of the writ has been impersonating a blogger on Twitter. The court action was brought by Donal Blaney. a right-leaning UK blogger and lawyer. Blaney uses the name Donal_Blaney on Twitter, but another user registered and has been using the name blaneysblarney. Blaney's blog is called Blaney's Blarney, and the photo used by blaneysblarney matches one appearing on the blog. It seems likely that the impersonator's big mistake was using that photo, as it has apparently left them open to a breach of copyright claim. The order calls upon the impersonator to reveal their identity to the court and to stop pretending to be Blaney. Since blaneysblarney is following Donal_Blaney, that made it possible to serve the writ via direct message. The electronic delivery of an injunction is permitted in the UK, but it is believed this is the first time that the use of Twitter has been authorised for the purpose in this jurisdiction. In order to fit within Twitter's 140 character limit, the message included a link to the full text of the order. No tweets have been sent from the blaneysblarney account since September 30, the day before the writ was issued. Twitter's rules allow impersonation only for the purposes of parody, but the joke must be apparent and the profile must make the impersonation obvious. The Twitter account donal39 is also associated with the name Donal Blaney. It had not been used to send any tweets at the time of writing, and it appears to be used to follow a diverse selection of individuals and organisations. |
Tags
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
