A federal judge has overruled a jury decision in the Lori Drew case, which would have criminalized violations of website terms of service. Clearly the jury wanted to get Drew for behavior which led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl. But by taking the law to mean that giving false personal information to a website is criminal if prohibited by the ToS, the jury turned millions of people into criminals. Judge George Wu said, "It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime. And therefore it criminalizes what would be a breach of contract.” Orin Kerr's analysis from May is still worth reading.
Drew is dirt, but distorting the law to target one person, however contemptible, makes very bad law. Now the overturning of Drew's conviction will probably lead to an increased push for overly broad "cyberbullying" laws that would criminalize blog posts that intentionally cause "emotional distress." But that's a subject for another blog.
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