A German state has declared that Facebook's policy requiring that a user identify himself by his real name violates that state's law allowing the use of pseudonyms and contravenes the fundamental right to freedom of expression on the Internet (see here for an Associated Press article).

The Facebook Name Policy states:

Facebook is a community where people use their real identities. We require everyone to provide their real names, so you always know who you're connecting with.
. . . [more]

It further explains that this helps keep the Facebook community safe. Given this concern for safety, Facebook will remove all fake accounts.

This is not

A LinkedIn group pointed me to an article titled "10 Ways to Completely Ruin Your Intranet". The article, a blog post by a company that offers a turnkey intranet solution, has some good tips about frustrating navigation, stale content and lack of collaboration.

My team is responsible for a significant amount of content on our Intranet, and skimming this vendor humour-based post got me thinking more about deep links. We have talked about deep links on CanLII and using CiteBite to link to quotes within in webpages here at Slaw. My team has been focusing on deep links, . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

How to Untag Yourself on Facebook (And Why You Might Want To)
Dan Pinnington

Have you ever been tagged in a picture or post on Facebook? If you have a Facebook account, the answer to this question is likely yes. And don’t feel comforted if you aren’t on Facebook: Anyone can be tagged in a photo, even someone who doesn’t have a Facebook account.

Given the nature of Facebook, . . . [more]

I've written a few posts recently about access to justice and the current flaws in our system. In the past month those flaws have reared their ugly head in my practice.

1. Where are your Documents?

I act for the plaintiff. In mid-August I sent my client's productions to opposing counsel and requested his client's productions and discovery dates. Between mid-August and mid-November I followed up on eight separate occasions. I was given a variety of excuses that "the documents were coming" / "meeting with my client next week" / "should have them for you next week". Alas, they never came . . . [more]

Back in 2009 Ted Tjaden put together what I consider a seminal paper called "The 7 Faces of Legal Knowledge Management." [PDF] Knowledge Management is still a young discipline, with thinking and the areas it encompasses in flux. At a couple of recent meetings, including Knowledge Workers Toronto (a KM-related meetup group I help to organize), we explored how KM is changing, how it is varying from these "7 Faces". Here are a few of my notes co-mingled from those discussions.

KM as a place to develop new frameworks and models

As the place to develop new thinking, . . . [more]

2012 has not been a good year for RIM. The company became a favorite punching bag for technology pundits as it continued to delay products and fail in everything from marketing to developer relations. RIM's co-CEO's lost their job, and the company's new CEO, Thorsten Heins, promised the company's new operating system, BlackBerry 10, would catalyze a turnaround for the company, something many tech experts thought was delusionally optimistic.

The company has finally pinned a release date on BlackBerry 10: January 30th. Rogers and other carries are taking pre-orders today, and RIM is sending out preview hardware and software to over 120 . . . [more]

In the past 18 months, we have seen significant developments in jurisprudence on a variety of family law issues. In addition, a number of cases have come out that, while not strictly related to family law, should be kept in mind. The following are the top ten noteworthy cases that every family law lawyer should know about. Several are Supreme Court cases that will be of interest to family lawyers across Canada. CanLII links are included where available.

Kerr v. Baranow and Vanesse v. Seguin (2011, S.C.C.) – Joint family venture
Schreyer v. Schreyer . . . [more] (2011, S.C.C.) – Effect of discharge

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada's award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from thirty-five 2010 & 2011 CLawBie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Rule of Law  2. Legal Feeds Blog  3. Michael Geist's Blog  4. Small City Law Firm Tech  5. Official Clio Blog

Rule of Law
New Limitation Act Information on Ministry of Justice Website
British Columbia's new Limitation Act will come into effect on June 1, 2013. This . . . [more]

Ab Currie, currently Chief Research Advisor and Principal Researcher: Legal Aid and Access to Justice, in the Federal Department of Justice, is leaving the Government of Canada to join the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) as the Senior Research Fellow. CFCJ is Canada’s leading non-governmental independent think tank devoted to research and policy development on access to civil justice and civil justice reform. Dr. Currie will also hold a visiting appointment at the Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where CFCJ is currently housed. He will be fully engaged at the CFCJ by April 1, 2013.

Ab Currie, originally trained . . . [more]

Hier soir, dans un dépanneur, j'ai fait quelque chose que je fais rarement: j'ai jeté un coup d'oeil aux magazines. La mention "Édition Spéciale 40 ans" de la revue Protégez-Vous a attiré mon attention. La case "Obtenir un meilleur accès à la justice" – en page couverture! – encore plus. En lisant ceci toutefois il fallait que je ramène la revue chez moi:

Coûts exorbitants, délais interminables, décorum d'un autre temps, language incompréhensible… Pour la grande majorité des citoyens, la justice demeure un beau principe. À quand l'accessibilité véritable? – Priscilla Franken

La question de l'accessibilité à la justice n'est . . . [more]

One of the challenges with Twitter, especially once you start to accumulate a following and engage thousands of people, is that it appears as if the information is fleeting and quickly gone forever.

What happened to that interesting legal case in that other jurisdiction that we were discussing on Twitter last month? If only I had bookmarked the page…

Twitter announced earlier this summer that users would be able to download Tweets, a promise that was reiterated last month with a deadline of the end of 2012. Some users are sharing that the feature has already been rolled out on . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week's summaries are in Discovery, Divorce, & Liability Insurance . . . [more]