Sixteen-year-old Megan Meier killed herself when she received
cruel messages from an online friend, 16-year-old Josh Evans,
through MySpace. It then emerged that Evans had never existed but
was an online alter ego created by Lori Drew, a 49-year-old
woman.
State authorities initially investigated the incident but found
no laws on which to launch any action against Drew. Federal
prosecutors, though, launched an action based on MySpace's terms
and conditions.
In order to send messages to Meier, they argued, Drew would have
had to sign up to MySpace, providing false information to create an
account for the fictional Josh Evans. That would have involved
giving at least a fake name and date of birth, both banned under
the terms and conditions.
Prosecutors said that because her activity was conducted in
violation of the terms and conditions of the site, it became
unauthorised use of the service.
A federal grand jury in California has indicted Drew on
charges of conspiracy and on three counts of accessing protected
computers without authorisation to get information used to inflict
emotional distress on Meier, Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors are expected to argue at trial that a violation
of MySpace's terms and conditions can be extrapolated into an
offence.
Editor's note, 23/05/08: This story initially
suggested that a verdict had been returned in the trial of this
case. We apologise for that error.
