May 11
The cases of a teenage Nova Scotia girl who was allegedly defamed on a bogus Facebook page and of two University of Calgary students who were punished for criticizing a professor on the social networking site are just two examples of the legal wranglings involving social media.
The Supreme Court of Canada heard an appeal by the Nova Scotia girl on Thursday. The young woman and her family are appealing a lower court’s ruling that said she couldn’t proceed with her defamation case without revealing her name.
In the case of the University of Calgary students, the Alberta Court of Appeal sided with the students.
While high-profile cases like those are rare in Canada, there are still a number of outstanding legal issues involving Facebook — apart from the defamation/criticism described above — that could have an impact on social network behaviour
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May 11
It is a commonly accepted practice within the eDiscovery industry to image documents for production. Likewise, it is now a commonly accepted practice, and indeed even a preferred practice, to exempt spreadsheets (and some other file types) from that requirement, instead producing those documents natively. The idea being that parties would rather obtain native spreadsheets allowing them to work with and view the content in a meaningful manner rather than receive spreadsheet images that can be useless, cumbersome, or exceedingly difficult to accurately use and understand. There is a nascent trend of not only producing spreadsheets in native format, but redacting them in native format as well (the concept has existed for years but is becoming an increasing point of emphasis as of late).
The inherent nature of a spreadsheet means that it often contains complex data located in multiple rows, columns, and tabs. The data often includes or involves the use of formulas, sorting, or filtering amongst other features. Macros, pivot tables, and hidden content add to the complexity. If printed, the data often falls across multiple pages in a less than complete and less than orderly manner resulting in a confusing mess that is difficult to cobble together, let alone read and use. The fact of the matter is that images simply are unable to capture the complexities many spreadsheets contain, so if the document and its content are to be useful and meaningful, you must produce them natively. Most litigants now recognize this and are comfortable with, and often require, the native production of spreadsheets. Yet, traditionally they have been less than enthusiastic about redacting spreadsheets in native format.
Given that it is an accepted practice to produce spreadsheets natively, because that is how they will be most useful, why should redactions change that? The answer is that it should not, and more and more practitioners are beginning to realize this. Redacting changes the data in the spreadsheet, but it does not change the nature of the spreadsheet, the functionality of it, or how one uses the spreadsheet. If a spreadsheets needs to be produced natively to be useful in its non-redacted original state, then logically it should be produced natively to be useful in a redacted state.
To Continue Reading: Click Here  —————————————————— Source: eDiscovery NewsBy: Brandon D. Hollinder

May 10
Twitter is fighting to shield a Wall Street Occupier from demands for his network data, as the company campaigns to protect user privacy despite increasing government opposition.

The social media company seeks to overturn a subpoena demanding account records for Malcolm Harris, a Twitter user arrested during last fall’s Occupy protests.

Police nabbed Harris for allegedly blocking the Brooklyn Bridge, though he maintains they first directed him to occupy the roadway.

District Attorney prosecutors, however, say the defendant’s Twitter records will prove he was “well aware of the police instructions and acted with the intent of obstructing traffic on the bridge.”

Furthermore, the prosecution maintains Harris has no right to challenge its subpoena, leaving Twitter as his only champion in the legal field.
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