CHAPTER QUIZ

ClassmateFinders.com is a Web site where people set up accounts entering their name, address, age, e-mail address, schools attended, occupation, employer, and other personal information about themselves, their lives and their families, hoping to reconnect with former classmates and friends. The Web site charges a $25 fee to open an account and while it has a form requesting certain information it also contains blank spaces for the individual to enter any additional information he chooses to add. Any member can read any other member’s account profile. Hannah Hottie listed her name, address, employer, and a history of her life since graduating from school. Oliver Obsessione had a huge crush on Hannah in high school but lost track of her after graduation. Now, many years later, he joined ClassmateFinders.com and received access to her profile with her contact information. He began by sending Hannah erotic anonymous emails and then progressed to phoning her at home and at work. Later, he would leave disturbing notes on her doorstep describing the clothes she had worn and the places she had visited that day. Realizing that Oliver was a cyberstalker, Hannah sought a restraining order against him and filed a civil lawsuit against ClassmateFinders.com, the source of the information he had used to stalk her. What will be her arguments for finding ClassmateFinders.com liable and is she likely to prevail?

Meanwhile, Hannah’s 14-year-old daughter Holly Hottie was in a chat room when she was approached by Pete-the-Perv, a 38-year-old haberdasher. Holly reported Pete to the ISP who in turn reported Pete to the police. Detective Dick Tracy took over Holly’s account and, pretending to be the 14-year-old girl, engaged in two dozen instant messages (IMs) with Pete, who made sexual advances toward “her,” culminating in an arranged meeting at a local hotel for sex. Pete was arrested and transcripts of the chat room IMs were the main evidence against Pete. What are the legal arguments for and against admitting the chat room transcripts into evidence?

List the issues involved and probable outcomes.

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