University of Virginia law librarian Michelle Morris made an interesting proposal recently in the Yale Law Journal Pocket Part:

Our law students are more tech-savvy than ever. Unfortunately, they occasionally lack sense. Some of them simply fail to realize that we—professors, bar examiners, and law firms—see material they post online. Others make a game out of being intentionally, but anonymously, offensive. To avoid further injury to the reputation of our law schools and the legal profession, we must create incentives for the former students to consider consequences, and a reasonable chance that the latter students can be “caught”—i.e., tied to their online personas. To accomplish both ends, I propose that we request, in law school and bar applications, a three-year history of online aliases and related information.

In developing her argument, Morris refers to an incident involving AutoAdmit.com in which a UC Berkeley law student posted comments about plans for a Virginia Tech copycat shooting spree at Hastings College of Law. Hastings canceled classes and evacuated the law school as a result of this threat. UC Berkeley recommended expulsion for the student involved.

In the spring of 2006 I wrote about the potential problems law students might encounter due to "anonymous" online behavior, albeit in a far less dangerous context:

A time is coming when no employer will hire someone without first searching for that person on MySpace. A student can be professional and likable throughout the entire interview process, but if her MySpace profile is filled with "loud comments, loud music, and all around bluster," a managing partner might very well think twice about hiring her. If a student brags about his excessive drinking, an HR director may not want to take a risk on him in a profession already riddled with substance abuse problems. Everyone knows that people are usually on their best behavior in job interviews. By searching out a candidate's MySpace profile, a law firm administrator can see what that person might be like when her guard is down. And that can often be far more important than her GPA.

In another post I linked to a news story about the University of South Florida's attempts to educate incoming students about the possible unintended consequences of their online personas:

During orientation and in the University's code of conduct, school officials remind students just how a not-so-positive website could affect life after college.

"In the future, when they're looking for a job, and the employer has seen whatever kind of picture and statements are available, you can hurt yourself, people need to be aware, whatever they put up will be available."

Morris's proposal is the next logical consequence. In the case of bar admissions, where a thorough background check is sometimes necessary, the proliferation of online pseudonyms makes true thoroughness a challenge. I'm not sure how quickly state bars will implement required disclosure of online aliases, but it's definitely a matter of "When," not "If."

[Yale L.J. Pocket Part] The Legal Profession, Personal Responsibility, and the Internet

Not since the early days of Gopher and the World Wide Web have so many libraries all been heading to the same place. Today it is not so much a new technology revolution as a new way of reaching out to users. The migration, this time, is to MySpace. As with the move to the web a decade ago the move to MySpace is being undertaken by libraries and businesses alike. And as with that earlier migration there are many issues to consider.(1)

The overwhelming appeal of MySpace is meeting users where they are. There are older social networks like Classmates.com that have not taken off in the way MySpace has probably because they were dependent upon a pay-to-play model that asks more than many users will give. With a powerful new network comes a cadre of people who would like to use the opportunity to connect with people for their particular cause. For example, Brandon Hoffman is finding thousands of friends on MySpace. Like many libraries Hoffman is not using the service for himself, but as a way of promoting car dealerships. The practice is drawing the attention of MySpace. A MySpace representative told CNet:

MySpace was created to allow friends to organically communicate, connect and discover shared interests. Any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends, is a violation of the company's terms of use, as they upset the ecosystem of the network and go against the very principles upon which the company was founded.

Each new service or technology elicits variety of responses from libraries. The early adopters are already jumping into the MySpace pool and the old schoolers are doubtful it will ever be useful. One thing is clear, however, in terms of tools for libraries to reach young users MySpace may be unmatched. It is difficult to underestimate the value of reaching out to the audience MySpace attracts. With all the potential upside MySpace presents there are several drawbacks in the site's Terms of Service (TOS). As with any innovation libraries should carefully weigh the pros and cons of MySpace or other social networking sites for promotional or online branch purposes.

Terms of Service

The MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement presents several problems for the would-be library profile on the site. Taking items in my order instead of the order they are presented in the terms here are a few of the problems.

Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the Services is void where prohibited. By using the Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (b) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; (c) you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.

In order to create a profile one must agree to these terms. So you agree that you will only submit "truthful and accurate" information. How, then, do those wanting to post a profile for a library get past the first page of questions including "First Name", "Last Name", "Gender" and "Birth Date"?

Non-commercial Use by Members. The Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com.

Most libraries are non-commercial entities so there is probably wiggle room here. However it also states clearly that MySpace services are for personal use of Members and does not extend to commercial, public or non-profit entities using the service to promote their operations.

Content/Activity Prohibited. The following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited to post on or through the Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communication from the Services and terminating the Membership of such violators. Prohibited Content includes, but is not limited to Content that, in the sole discretion of MySpace.com:

[...]
6. provides any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses;

So under the terms the simple profile for the Thomas Ford Memorial Library is in violation of each of the terms except posting a URL. Denver Public Library's eVolver profile is replete with URLs, many of which point to the library's special Teen Website.

Libraries and car dealers are not the only sites violating the terms of service. One is left to wonder if MySpace won't either soon change the terms of service or may be working on a way to begin enforcing them. This brings up the last problem with libraries use of MySpace and the terms of service.

MySpace.com may modify this Agreement from time to time and such modification shall be effective upon posting by MySpace.com on the Website. You agree to be bound to any changes to this Agreement when you use the Services after any such modification is posted. It is therefore important that you review this Agreement regularly to ensure you are updated as to any changes.

The last time I set about to have the university approve a contract, even one that costs $0, it was a lengthly process with many reviews. I can only imagine what the general counsel of libraries around the country will think when asked to agree to bind the organization to an agreement like this. Better yet will the library's patrons be well served each time the site is offline while the new terms are reviewed by counsel?

The Privacy Policy included in the TOS says:

Third Party Advertising
Ads appearing on this Web site may be delivered to users by MySpace.com or one of our Web advertising partners. Our Web advertising partners may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. In this way, ad servers may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by MySpace.com and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

If I were to come into a library and say "I'd like to pay $5 to find out what books Johnny is interested in" I'd be rightly run out of the library. A slight variation of that same conversation would be the hostility good libraries would show a content advertiser who wants to advertise on the library's website and catalog. Though they might only have a small slice of information about the patrons of the library and what books they are interested in, the thought of divulging patron information at any level is horrifying.

But wait, isn't this a bit of a stretch? Maybe. It is obvious to anyone setting up a library profile in MySpace that they may have their library name associated with advertisers they might not prefer to be associated with. It is also reasonable to think that, if they aren't already, MySpace would sell advertising based on users' interests. If they know from the pages of a library profile that a patron is interested in country music why show them ads for heavy metal? This same information then, begins to disclose an amount of information about patrons interaction with the library.

Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com.

1. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Services. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) the posting of your Content on or through the Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of any Content posted by you to or through the Services.

So everything you do on MySpace, including sending messages, is theirs. MySpace can do anything they want with it for as long as you have it on their site. Notably there is no mention of an exclusion for messages between users which appear to be private or blog posts that a user restricts to access by their friends only. A patron asking a question about a sensitive issue or just browsing for information may have that information collected by advertisers or used as the headline Fox News tonight.

Undeniably MySpace is a force to be reckoned with today. The ability for libraries to meet their patrons in a comfortable place for the patron is important. Will MySpace join the ranks of Gopher, GEnie and eWorld or if it will be the next iteration of the web itself? Either way libraries contemplating a MySpace presence need to consider all the ramifications. And for libraries and a myriad of other users, a more reasonable MySpace user agreement is critical.

Background

For considerably more information on MySpace in libraries Tom's earlier articles from this site will give you additional information:

• Lawmakers seek to block MySpace in libraries
• USF educating students about MySpace
• How should law schools deal with MySpace?

Who said the slope wasn't slippery? Looks like the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was just the beginning:

MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users.

"When children leave the home and go to school or the public library and have access to social-networking sites, we have reason to be concerned," Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNET News.com in an interview.

While seated in a movie theater this past weekend, I noticed that (as usual) many of the people seated around me were periodically using their cell phones, either to check the time, send and receive text messages, or find out who was calling them during the movie. My first instinct was to get angry, but then I realized that none of these people were making a sound. Their ringers were turned off, and they weren't actually answering calls. Sure, the backlights on the phones were giving off a dim glow whenever they turned them on, but it was certainly nothing to get upset about. The fact is, people have cell phones. Those devices are an integral part of most people's lives now. I could either be annoyed by my fellow moviegoers refusal to turn back the clock, or I could accept that the world had simply changed.

Well, when it comes to social networking sites, the Del Mar Colleges and Mike Fitzpatricks of the world also need to accept that the world has changed. They can block and ban whatever they want, but the world will never change back. Ever. There is a golden opportunity here for schools, libraries, and even the government to embrace these tools and incorporate them into everyday life. While doing so, they can certainly educate young people about the dangers of putting too much personal information onto these sites. But the increasing number of institutions that are opting to bury their collective heads in the sand will accomplish little more than the promotion of ignorance.

If this law passes, it will certainly be a sad day for all the libraries already making creative use of MySpace for outreach to teenage patrons. If Fitzpatrick gets his way, a popular portion of those libraries' web presences will be blocked within their own walls. (For an thorough analysis of the library/MySpace debate and some examples of libraries using social networking sites to their advantage, check out Meredith Farkas's recent post at Information Wants to Be Free.)

[News.com] Congress targets social network sites (via LJ Tech Blog)

Looks like some schools are fully aware of the potential ill effects a MySpace profile can have on their students' career prospects. A couple of days ago, WTSP in St. Petersburg, Florida, aired a report on the University of South Florida - St. Petersburg's efforts to educate students about the issue:

During orientation and in the University's code of conduct, school officials remind students just how a not-so-positive website could affect life after college.

"In the future, when they're looking for a job, and the employer has seen whatever kind of picture and statements are available, you can hurt yourself, people need to be aware, whatever they put up will be available."

It's not clear from the story whether USF is actually setting MySpace content policies for its students or simply making them aware of possible problems they may encounter. For the sake of free speech, I certainly hope it's the latter. That way, it's entirely up to the individual students whether they care about any negative effects. At the very least, the story seems to make clear that USF has rejected the head-in-the-sand approach of schools like Del Mar College who ban use of MySpace altogether.

[First Coast News] Potential Bosses May be looking at you on MySpace

ifoAppleStore reported Sunday that many Apple retail stores have begun blocking access to MySpace from their display computers due to a large number of teens using the machines to surf the social networking site. Few, if any, of these teens were making store purchases during their visits, and the visits to MySpace were hogging large portions of the stores' internet bandwidth.

The practice of blocking MySpace is hardly new. As the most popular website among teens, the service is bound to make up a significant portion of internet traffic any place young people use computers. Instead of embracing this wired generation and looking for innovative ways to make use of MySpace and other services like it, some educational institutions are beginning, like Apple stores, to restrict access completely. Just this past week, Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, became the latest college to block students from using MySpace on campus computers. According to the school's chief IT officer, 40% of the school's bandwidth was used for traffic related to MySpace. Rather than try to understand the phenomenon, Del Mar opted to bury its head in the sand.

In the library world, there are some examples of institutions making use of MySpace in interesting ways. Aaron Schmidt at walking paper points to the Denver Public Library's MySpace page as the best library use of the service to date. Filled with all the same loud comments, loud music, and all around bluster we've come to expect from MySpace profiles, the library's page comes off as completely authentic. Best of all, it doesn't look or feel like it was written by someone trying desperately to fit in with teens.

For law schools, however, the MySpace issue is a complicated one. Law students are certainly using the site in large numbers. (If you don't believe this, log in sometime and do a search for any law school community; you will be amazed.) In some cases, even law professors are adding profile pages and adding their students as "friends." As today's teens become tomorrow's law students, this trend is likely to grow stronger. With many schools producing news items about professors who ban laptops from their classroom, the legal education community can seem somewhat stuffy and technophobic to many students. But following the lead of Del Mar College would likely be a disaster for most law schools in the long run. Once a law school becomes known for being "technology unfriendly," it will only attract "technology unfriendly" students, and one look at today's high school students should tell you that "technology unfriendly" students will be few and far between very soon. In addition, with the legal profession moving increasingly towards web-based document filing systems and electronic practice management tools, many law firms would be ill-advised to hire graduates of a law school that de-emphasizes computer and internet know-how.

But the world of hiring is precisely the place where MySpace can and will be a problem for law schools. With the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings fresh in their minds, many law school administrators are certainly taking notice of the placement rates of their schools' recent graduates. Career Services departments are then charged with increasing those rates so a school's ranking can improve. This can involve anything from making suggestions for improving a student's resume to scheduling more on-campus interviews to staging faux-networking events to improve students' schmoozing skills. But as far as I can tell, no one is really talking about the effect of MySpace yet. And they should be.

A time is coming when no employer will hire someone without first searching for that person on MySpace. A student can be professional and likable throughout the entire interview process, but if her MySpace profile is filled with "loud comments, loud music, and all around bluster," a managing partner might very well think twice about hiring her. If a student brags about his excessive drinking, an HR director may not want to take a risk on him in a profession already riddled with substance abuse problems. Everyone knows that people are usually on their best behavior in job interviews. By searching out a candidate's MySpace profile, a law firm administrator can see what that person might be like when her guard is down. And that can often be far more important than her GPA.

Most profiles also include demographic information such as marital/family status, sexual orientation, and religion that employers can't or won't ask an applicant in an interview because of anti-discrimination laws. By disclosing this information on MySpace, law students are serving up the very information an anti-semitic or homophobic employer needs to make a discriminatory decision, and in a way that makes any later accusations of discrimination virtually impossible to prove.

Law schools need to start educating their students about these issues. Employer use of MySpace is only going to increase in the next few years, and students have to realize that every single word and image they put in their profiles can have a serious impact on their marketability. MySpace is purposely designed to make every profile as easily found as possible. By anyone. Users can search profiles by name, email address, school, or profession. Unless a profile contains so many lies as to make it utterly useless, it can be found. And rest assured, it will be found. Even if it contains no identifiable information in the profile itself, odds are a friend will leave a comment that makes the user identifiable. So when a top 10 student decides to brag about his exploits during a recent visit to Tijuana, he needs to know that every lawyer at that big firm he's eying has access to that information.

As Career Services departments become more aware of this issue, so too will Admissions departments, which means prospective students will start being rejected based on MySpace profiles. By some accounts, this practice has already begun.

A little education can go a long way on this issue. Because placement rates can have a huge impact on an institution's reputation, it's in every law school's best interest to make their students aware of the potential negative impact of a MySpace profile. Rather than simply discouraging students from using the service altogether, however, administrators have an opportunity to illustrate to students that, just as a bad MySpace profile can hurt their job search, a well-written page can help it tremendously. Treat a profile like an extension of your resume, and you just might gain a significant advantage over your fellow applicants.

And no one is saying students can't go to Tijuana. They just might want to reconsider how much they reveal about the trip on MySpace.