Privacy policies be damned, say lawyers looking to make a bankruptcy court liquidate a defunct GLBT website’s membership list of gay and lesbian teenagers. The users, who presumably signed up thinking their personal information would not be used outside of the site’s terms of service, may find that their identifiable information is treated like an asset and their anonymity is breached.
It makes sense from a bankruptcy lawyer’s perspective: the site is belly up, and that list has value. Whether or not that value is transferable will be one of the important tech policy issues that needs to be hashed out over the coming years. It also underscores a pretty important lesson about internet activity: maybe on the internet no one knows you’re a dog, but you have to assume they’ll find out eventually.
Jim Eltringham 