Google+ invite lands man in jail

http://www.fastcompany.com/3024452/google-invite-lands-man-in-jail

by fridek • 13 years ago

165 197 13 years ago

DateK• 13 years ago

Collateral damage?

tjgq3• 13 years ago

The article focuses mainly on whether the man did indeed send the Google+ invitation to his former girlfriend. It seems to me that the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order. The bar is far too low when receiving a single inconsequential message that you have full ability to ignore can be considered a form of harassment.

ronilan• 13 years ago

the actual troubling question is whether sending a Google+ invitation can be considered a violation of a restraining order.

In America we, the people, go to court to get answers to tough questions. Easy questions we google.

buro92• 13 years ago

A restraining order is against any form of contact.

You (and I) don't know the circumstances that led to the restraining order. There may have been violence, intimidation, harassment, abuse. This may even form part of a consistent pattern of abuse.

The woman in this case may feel so traumatised by any reminder of her ex, or contact from him, that the act of receiving an email from him (on his behalf) may actually be deeply upsetting and disturbing. It may undo any efforts she has put in place to move on with her life, and restore her to the place of being abused.

If a court has put in place a restraining order then there is no acceptable basis for the ex to contact her. Including whether that contact is via an automated email on his behalf.

I'm with the v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶ court on this. Someone is to blame, and the bar isn't too low. I do think that a decision like this will cause Google to evaluate the impact of any automated emails.

I also think that if you get a restraining order against you it's not enough to lazily avoid contact with the other person, you should proactively ensure that you do not contact the other person... so purge your address book if need be, the court has made it your responsibility to not contact the other person.

rjknight4• 13 years ago

There is no "with the victim" here though. I mean, morally speaking, we are all with the victim - human decency alone demands that we have sympathy for their predicament, which is why we have things like restraining orders in the first place. But the enforcement of the order is done by the police and the state, and the state is in a position to imprison someone for an act which they did not commit, which seems to me to be unfair. If Google carries out automated actions on behalf of its users, without their knowledge or permission and in a way that they cannot reasonably predict or prevent, then it seems unjust to punish the user.

You can say that the person should have removed the victim from their contacts, but it's not even obvious that they would have known that the victim was on their contact list (basically, anyone you ever email gets added to it), and even if they did know, they would have no particular reason to assume that Google would contact this person automatically.

BitMastro• 13 years ago

Slightly unrelated, but how does a restraining order behaves when dealing with a broadcast?

For example, if the attacker buys an ad on a newspaper or tv and says something without addressing the victim specifically, is it against the law?

narag• 13 years ago

Maybe I don't understand correctly the legal terms but this:

You (and I) don't know the circumstances that led to the restraining order.

... doesn't seem to be very consistent with this:

I'm with the victim on this.

Isn't it possible for a court to issue mutual restraint orders? Or maybe the order is a preventive measure for alledged facts that are still to be evaluated.

We don't know what happened to motivate the order. We know who the victim is here: the guy that got jailed.

Also, I don't think it's very reasonable to expect most users to know how to purge personal information from sites, it's a recurring theme over here.

einhverfr22• 13 years ago

I don't know if the bar is too low, since crimes have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Jailing someone here seems rather excessive though.

Keep in mind I find this no contact thing rather weird. Of course I spent most of my adult life in small towns in the US, where such a broad order would be met with "no contact? In a town of 3000 people? Are you saying he has to move out of town?"

I have also known people who were heavily threatened by exes and opted to just disappear for a while. The reason is that if you are really in danger, then the last thing you want is to tell the target of the order where to avoid (because that's where you will be). Due notice (a Constitutional requirement) makes restraining orders useless against someone dangerous enough.

tjgq3• 13 years ago

Even though I don't know the specifics, I take issue with the very idea that merely contacting someone can constitute harassment. At the very least, the content of the message should be taken into account. Intent, more than raw actions taken out of context, is what determines wrongdoing.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the actual law is being misinterpreted. I'm merely stating my personal views about the existence of such a law.

dragonwriter6• 13 years ago

A restraining order is against any form of contact.

A restraining order has specific terms that address exactly what conduct it restrains. It may or may not be against any form of contact [1]. So the question is really, is the specific kind of conduct here within what was actually prohibited in the order (a secondary consideration, if it was, might be whether or not it should have been included in the order, but the remedy for that is to appeal the order, not to defy it and expect not to face consequences.)

[1] See, for instance, the the California template domestic violence restraining order, with check-off boxes for standard terms (including #21 -- which is completely free text) that may or may not be imposed in any particular order: http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/dv110.pdf

rjknight4• 13 years ago

I disagree. A restraining order is precisely meant to bar all forms of communication so that we don't need to decide on a case-by-case basis which communications violate the order, which would lead to highly unequal enforcement with some people being punished for things that others are not punished for.

krcz• 13 years ago

I agree, but I don't find it obvious if following (adding to circles) someone on Google+ is a form of communication at all.

tjgq3• 13 years ago

Perhaps I wasn't too clear in my original post. I was making a normative statement, not a positive one. In other words, I accept that the actual law may consider this a violation; I'm questioning whether the law itself is acceptable in those terms.

Then again, I don't live in the USA, and the concept of a restraining order is a bit alien to me since it's not something heard of as much over here. There surely is some cultural bias at play.

I don't think it's too much to ask for courts to decide on a case-by-case basis. Establishment of intent is one of the main things courts exist for.

tehwebguy• 13 years ago

I spent a few minutes reading up in restraining orders in Massachusetts (the state this happened in) and it doesn't look like contacting someone would even count as a violation!

MaulingMonkey• 13 years ago

Without knowing the details of the exact case behind the restraining order, it's hard to be certain the bar is set "far too low" as you assert. Set a hard bar like that, and many will simply see "I can get away with that!", and find as many such bars they can scrape under as possible - making up in volume what they lack in direct effect - or a line to slowly cross further and further when not nipped in the bud. This is, ultimately, why intent matters.

Sufficiently strong-willed people can ignore death threats as "inconsequential, empty bluster." However, this is neither necessarily wise, recommended, or easy, nor does it disqualify such threats as harassment.

While an invite is no death threat, I'd note there's another bar in play here too: The former girlfriend was, if we're to give her the benefit of the doubt, perturbed enough by this invitation to go down to the police station.

rmc13• 13 years ago

If the restraining order says "Don't contact them", then it makes sense that if you manually triggered an invite that would break the order.

awk232• 13 years ago

I understand what the author is trying to say but there is an awful lot of "perhaps" punctuating all the G+ bashing he manages to fit in that post. I'm guessing the relevant evidence will be reveled in court.

Also worth discussing if an invitation email, automated or otherwise, should be considered a restraining order violation.

voidr3• 13 years ago

Just opened up Google+ on a 15" Mac Book Pro in Chrome and all I see is whitespace and "You may know", "Interesting people and pages" and other useless crap, what I'm not seeing is my feed. Only around 10% of the screen space is used for things I care about, it really baffles me how Google thinks that this is a contender against Facebook. They should realise that spamming people won't make them like their horrible UI.

Edit:

Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4889ilnwfmplu0l/Screenshot%202014-...

DominikR3• 13 years ago

Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really?

With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook.

And how does your comment have anything to do with the article?

tim333• 13 years ago

Out of curiosity I just opened my g+ on a 1280 x 800 thinkpad and counted pixels and 17% was feed with my normal settings. Actually by changing the text size you can vary the percent of screen your feed takes from 0% to a max of about 75%. Facebook has a fair bit of empty space too.

voidr3• 13 years ago

Could you possibly exaggerate any more? 10%? Really? With the multi column newsfeed on Google+ it's just impossible that you see less content than on Facebook.

Look at the screenshot I posted on the original content.

The point of my comment was that Google should focus on making their product actually usable instead of trying to carve out some market share by brute force.

chillingeffect2• 13 years ago

One of the points of the article is that it's hard to tell and control what is happening on the Google+ interface and system.

Add A/B testing and rollout of new features, utter lack of accountability and bugs, and probably no one in the world can ACTUALLY TELL if the alleged abuser actually sent an invite.

awk232• 13 years ago

That is beside the point. Also G+ isn't a 1:1 Facebook competitor.

voidr3• 13 years ago

The point is Google should make their product attractive instead of relying of just leveraging their existing power to promote it. It doesn't have to be exactly 1:1 for people to be expecting at least the same quality.

tluyben24• 13 years ago

I watch American tv shows and movies and am well aware of restraining orders but thought it was something very rare and almost never happens; now I read this. Is it that normal to get one 'after a breakup'? I have never heard anything like that in my country except for hardcore, life threatening criminal situations. Is it that easy to get one there and you actually get rounded up and hauled to a cell for violating while you are just 'contacting'?

rjknight4• 13 years ago

If it sounds unlikely, then there's probably more to the story. We don't know what happened between them that caused a judge to believe the order to be necessary, but I presume that such orders are not given lightly.

tluyben24• 13 years ago

Well I presume that as well; I hope someone here has experience with that and can tell how hard it is? Because I just had that 'wow!' experience ; it feels like they hand them out at the police station to anyone asking :) I know they are not, but some 'actual', non media enlarged information would be great!

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

They are given lightly. For example, a woman in Santa Fe got a restraining order after a "breakup" with David Letterman. He was ordered to stop communicating with her via code words on his show. Kelsey Grammar was also involved somehow.

http://www.volokh.com/files/lettermanapp.pdf

http://www.volokh.com/files/lettermantro.pdf

(It was later overturned on the grounds that the Santa Fe court didn't have jurisdiction over mind control transmitted from NY.)

dredmorbius6• 13 years ago

You presume incorrectly in the case of a temporary restraining order. These can be and are granted without a hearing from the restrained party:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Temporary+Rest...

http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/faqs/violen...

patio11• 13 years ago

Assume that a restraining order represents someone's strongly held desire to get a restraining order. That's the limiting factor. It's much closer to "X was sued" (Y filed some paperwork) than "X was found guilty of a criminal offense."

pervycreeper2• 13 years ago

(IANAL) Restraining orders are usually granted without requiring any evidence, aside from the testimony of the person requesting it. I believe it is a common strategy for (especially) women to exploit this in order to gain some sort of advantage over their partners following a breakup.

dredmorbius6• 13 years ago

There's a distinction in many jurisdictions between a temporary order (granted as a matter of course on prima facie statement of the requester) and a permanent order, which generally requires a hearing and evidence from both parties (though if only one shows, the order is generally granted base on preponderance of evidence).

ROs suffer from a number of deficiencies: if someone's really bent on doing harm, they can be grossly ineffective. And in some cases (particularly child custody, though also other divorce proceedings, as well as immigration situations due to provisions of VAWA), ROs can be grossly misused to attempt to gain benefits not otherwise available.

Typically a TRO should have a hearing within a few weeks, however this isn't always the case (particularly in more complicated situations), so "temporary" may be an extended period of time.

Orders are rarely granted reciprocally, that is, as mutual stay-away orders, though these are granted in some cases. A unilateral order turns what are otherwise lawful actions into criminal ones (usually misdemeanors, but not always). The requesting party may use the order to trap the restrained party, particularly as forms of indirect contact (as described in this story) may be construed as violations of the order.

rmc13• 13 years ago

Them sneaky women! Always tricking men into things!</sarcasm>

zamryok2• 13 years ago

I would word it differently: "for women to use this in order to regain some sort of advantage" considering the fact that women generally are at a strong disadvantage in society (especially when it comes to personal safety and income)

king_jester6• 13 years ago

I believe it is a common strategy for (especially) women to exploit this in order to gain some sort of advantage over their partners following a breakup.

Perhaps the reason why women seek TROs and ROs is because they are much more likely then men to be the victim of physical assault, stalking, harassment, or murder from their partners or former partners.

aestra8• 13 years ago

I believe it is a common strategy for (especially) women to exploit this in order to gain some sort of advantage over their partners following a breakup.

The data is here. Common? You decide.

http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/ortner/docs/sorenson_doc2.pdf

The available information about restrained persons typically has been documented within the context of assessing the efficacy of restraining orders that were issued because of domestic violence. A random sample of 200 defendants in domestic violence or civil protection orders in San Diego during a 10-week period in 1990 (Meloy et al., 1997) indicates that most (72%) were men, and that the average age was 38 years (range 15 to 70 years). Caucasians predominated (57%), but there were substantial proportions of Blacks (22.5%) and Hispanics (17.5%) as well; ethnicity was unknown for 3% of the defendants. (Whether any of these groups were disproportionately represented is unknown; rates were not calculated.) A total of 11% had at least one contact with the county’s mental health services agency. A study of all 663 men against whom civil protection orders were granted in Quincy, Massachusetts (Klein, 1996), also in 1990, found an average age of 33 years (range 17 to 70 years) for the defendants. Half (49.5%) were not married, 46.6% were married, and 3.9% were formerly married. Almost 80% of the defendants had a prior criminal record within the state; more than half (54%) had at least one prior record for an alcohol or drug crime, usually drunk driving. Information on defendant ethnicity was not reported. The primary, albeit not the sole, focus of the present research is the person to be restrained. Such information can help increase the effectiveness of violence prevention efforts, which is not a small consideration given the history of violence among restrained persons—about three fourths of men against whom restraining orders are issued have prior criminal records (Isaac, Cochran, Brown, & Adam, 1994; Klein, 1996), and nearly half have committed a violent crime (Isaac et al., 1994).

Results indicate that about one fifth of the restraining orders are to restrain someone of the same gender as the protected person. It is not possible to ascertain with the available data whether these cases represent violence in gay and lesbian relationships or heterosexual pairings gone awry (e.g., to order the former male partner of a woman to stay away from her current male partner) or an unrealized relationship, as is often the situation in cases of stalking. Further research is needed to address the nature of same- and opposite- sex pairings in restraining orders.

dragonwriter6• 13 years ago

The problem here doesn't seem to be the restraining order itself, it seems to be -- if the description of how the invite in question could have been generated is correct -- that the police made an arrest without anything approaching probable cause to suspect that the arrestee had done anything prohibited by the order or otherwise criminal.

rmc13• 13 years ago

Well if the person is threatening your life, then it makes sense that you might break up with them...

einhverfr22• 13 years ago

But if the person is threatening your life, it makes no sense to get a restraining order.

"Yes, I know you want to kill me, so don't contact me, don't come near my home at such and such address, or my work at such and such address, or you will be guilty of a minor misdemeanor!" Right.... that's a good idea...

skrebbel• 13 years ago

My thoughts exactly! I don't even know what "restraining order" is in my language.

tluyben24• 13 years ago

We share that language; I didn't know the word, but it seems to be omgangs/contact verbod. And no, I rarely hear them being used; there was one for some Amsterdam gangster and the partner who betrayed him, but that makes sense.

parennoob4• 13 years ago

It is kind of telling that people seem to have become inured enough to the extremely anti-male nature of such laws in the US that they are seriously discussing whether or not sending a man to jail over sending a Google+ invite to a woman is okay or not, saying "it depends upon the circumstances" and whatnot.

Are you kidding me? Seriously, seeing "You got a Google+ invite from X" can cause you so much mental harm that you have to send another human being to jail? In a sane world, this would invite investigation for possible human rights violations. As it goes in the USA today, apparently people are shrugging their shoulders and saying "Well, you know, he did send her a Google+ invite..."

DanBC15• 13 years ago

The behaviour he was put in prison for was not "sending a G+ in invite" but "violating a court order".

rmc13• 13 years ago

The courts told him "no contact". This wasn't some frivilous law suit of "emotional harm", this was a judge saying "If you do this, you'll go to jail", and the person did the thing.

vezzy-fnord• 13 years ago

Thank you. I'm also appalled by the complete lack of empathy and the bitter pragmatism here.

If you're going to participate in social media, there's certain rules of etiquette and responsibilities to follow (not like anyone does, but anyway). Large companies will resort to malicious and unethical features in order to gain advantages. Fact of life. You would think our interconnected society would be aware of this, but I guess it's beyond the average consumer of social media.

Suro• 13 years ago

Why did the former girlfriend did not block the profile ? Google may have not advertised this feature but it doesn't look like hard to find...

RexRollman• 13 years ago

Because putting him in jail was more appealing to her?

mcv3• 13 years ago

Blocking does not prevent him from seeing her public posts, though. She may not notice, but you could still argue it's a form of stalking. And because of that notification, she now knows.

blueskin_• 13 years ago

Moral of the story: Don't use google+.

Jgrubb• 13 years ago

The story was that the "perp" claims he didn't even send the invite, that Google must've generated it for him. The moral of the story is that you might be a user of G+ and not even know it.

Read the article before boiling it down for us.

jessaustin5• 13 years ago

From TFA, a perfect example of how joining G+ could lead to this predicament:

And by default, when someone joins Google+ and that person is in your Gmail contacts, Google will automatically send you a notification, along with an invitation suggesting that you "add him [or her] to your Circles to stay connected."

In such a scenario, the alleged unrestrained person could be held responsible for the fact that his alleged target had received emails from him at any time in the past, such as before the order was requested or before they even "broke up".

It may well be that there are other scenarios that require even less interaction.

dredmorbius6• 13 years ago

Leastways: not with your real name.

mseebach• 13 years ago

It's about a violation of a restraining order. In other news, taking a step lands man in jail.

fridek• 13 years ago

I guess guy added her to his circles expecting a twitter-like model of following as a means of mild (or not) stalking. It's not that surprising that she got notified, but it would be great if "never send any email on my behalf" option existed in social networks.

jhgg• 13 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if she mistook the "People you may know" notification for an from someone add them to your circles on G+.

icebraining• 13 years ago

Well, she and the cops, since she "went down to the local police station with a print-out of the invitation".

Jare• 13 years ago

I don't think many people can understand half of what Google's UIs are trying to do or say anymore, even while we interact and use them. I wouldn't expect your local cops to be more knowledgeable from a printout.

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

hmm, this is an interesting case!

I think it must hinge on whether or not the guy actually acted to cause the invitation, or whether this was an automatic google thing based on previous emails between the two accounts.

If it was simply an automatic "add these people from your past emails" notification, then it seems very unreasonable to hold him to account for it. Sounds like the defendant needs a witness from Google about how Google+ works - which will almost certainly be difficult to get!

drdaeman• 13 years ago

I wonder if restraining orders apply to third parties contacting on behalf of the restrained person? Suppose, it's violation only if it's proven that the person willingly made third party to make contact? (Otherwise it's nearly trivial to put anyone under a restraining order to courtroom, huh.)

einhverfr22• 13 years ago

If they did, the third party would have a right to be told about it proactively and a right to contest it. I am betting there is no jurisdiction that does this.

philbarr• 13 years ago

I have a friend who works the emergency telephone line and is getting increasingly frustrated with calls regarding Facebook. A typical call will have the caller complain that, "[person x] has written something horrible on my wall!" So he says, "hang on? They've written on your wall? So you're friends with them?! Just un-friend them!"

In fact in a recent review he was told off for groaning loudly on the telephone when someone mentioned Facebook.

However, you can see that if Google+ continues with it's desperate push for market share like this, there will be more and more instances like that in the article. People really won't know how to properly eliminate others from the online social lives, as easily as just "un-friending" them.

sedha• 13 years ago

G+ did nothing out of the ordinary here (if indeed it did anything, there is plenty of guess work in that post) Facebook friending and Twitter following have landed many a person in jail, none of these services got this sort of blame for it.

When adding someone to your circle they get an email notification, same as when you follow someone on Twitter they get an email telling them that, But suddenly in G+ it's 'aggressive'?! sensationalism and blaming one service for something that is done by all and is mainly innocuous is bad form.

And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading.

fuzzix• 13 years ago

"And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading"

Does it ever send individual invites without explicit and clear consent or without explicit action by the user?

sophacles2• 13 years ago

I haven't consciously used G+ in a long time, yet people still occasionally get emails about me "adding them back". It's a very strange system and since I have no idea wtf it does or how it works, it can't really be said I'm doing that. I just read emails and use docs, and occasionally chat with a handful of people.

awinder• 13 years ago

Every time I go to google+, usually because of an email notification, i get redirected to an interstitial that helpfully wants to email all my gmail contacts to invite them to google+. Every time I go to google+ I'm one accidental button press away from annoying all my contacts.

Joeboy3• 13 years ago

It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened.

The problem here seems to be that the man was held accountable for a breach of such an order that was both minimal and unintentional. I would guess that the law takes this possibility into account, and the police involved probably should have rejected the woman's complaint as vexatious, if that was the entire basis of her complaint.

adekok3• 13 years ago

It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened.

The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high.

"My partner hit me!" And he's out. The courts are required to have a hearing within 30 days. Call the court and ask for that, and you'll be laughed at. 6 months later, the accusation is dropped.

In the mean time you've lost your house, kids, and likely your job.

DoS attacks aren't limited to computers. When we make it easier to do something... we get more of that behavior. Both good and bad.

Joeboy3• 13 years ago

The potential for abuse is high. The actual abuse is high.

And that is terrible, but I am not necessarily sure it is net terrible. To decide that, we would need to compare it with the terribleness of having no expedient legal recourse when you reasonably fear a partner might harass, assault or kill you. I've no doubt the implementation details suck though.

Ninja edit: Words.

marcosdumay• 13 years ago

Completely agree. I'm astonished that somebody got a restraining order against sending normal (as oposed to threatening or something like that) email.

If he phoned a radio station while she was listenning it, would he also go to jail?

mcv3• 13 years ago

If he phoned a radio station while she was listenning it, would he also go to jail?

I doubt it. The radio is a public forum that has nothing to do with her. As long as he doesn't mention her at all, it should be fine. (I assume; I'm no lawyer.)

Similarly, he can have a blog, and her accidentally stumbling upon it should not count as a violation.

Sending any kind of email directly to her, however, is direct contact and probably a violation of the restraining order.

leephillips• 13 years ago

In some states the order will curtail your right to purchase a firearm or, possibly, to exercise other 2nd amendment rights. Depending on your circumstances, this might endanger your life. That the courts can eliminate some of a citizen's rights based on an unsupported complaint with no due process might not be considered reasonable by everybody.

Joeboy3• 13 years ago

I'm not from the US, so that concern sounds bizarre to me.

king_jester6• 13 years ago

The reason for this is that there is a strong possibility that person could be acquiring a firearm to assault or murder to the person who filed the restraining order. A temporary halt to your ability to purchase firearms in sensible in that circumstance.

timje1• 13 years ago

Haha, I can imagine the argument.

"I've just broken up with my girlfriend, it was a pretty messy event and now she's got a temporary restraining order on me... And this really pissed me off. So as an obvious next step, I went to go exercise my rights via purchasing a handgun... only to find my 2nd amendment rights had been taken away! What's become of blessed 'merica?"

X4• 13 years ago

Does that only apply to the USA and UK? That is almost like "thought crime", when you look dangerous, or have similarity with someone portrayed in the media as the "bad guy". Can a person "feeling" intimidated by your look or presence sue you too? That would be ridiculous and put everyone into constant pressure to "look normal" I think.

atmosx2• 13 years ago

Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request.

That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done.

I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order. I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and lawyers loose common sense the minute they start practicing.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's whether the person under the restraining order tried to initiate contact with the person being protected by the restraining order.

nitrogen• 13 years ago

Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?

xtirpation2• 13 years ago

You're right of course, but I struggle to view the world in such a black-and-white manner to be honest especially when there are black boxes like in play, Google+'s source code in this case.

How much proof would have to be provided that the Google+ invitation was sent deliberately by the user? Sworn testimony from a Google employee? There can of course exist bugs that send invites erroneously that nobody knows about. Revealing of the source code and analysis by experts? Unknown bugs can still exist, especially in systems as large as Google's.

Stepping back from this particular case, what about apps that scan your contact list and automatically send invites and/or messages?

These situations aside, it's far too easy to accidentally send an invitation. Hell, I don't doubt that many people reflexively agree to prompts on websites they think they're familiar with. Of course the argument can be made that people with restraining orders must be more careful, but it just doesn't seem sane to me that people can get jail time for clicking a button on a prompt that most people wouldn't think twice about.

dragonwriter6• 13 years ago

A restraining order means no contact, period.

No, a restraining order means whatever the restraining order says. A restraining order may or may not say "no contact, period" (and, in fact, it is unlikely to say "no contact, period", especially in the case of a TRO which is always issued in the context of a lawsuit between the parties, which necessarily requires contact by certain channels).

A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact

A request to link accounts that isn't initiated by the person who is a subject of order, even if it is presented to the person who is protected by the order by an online service as an invitation to connect to the subject of the order cannot, OTOH, be a violation of the restraining order, as there is no act by the subject of the order involved.

jessaustin5• 13 years ago

...judges/prosecutors... [lose] common sense the minute they start practicing.

The system actually selects for the most vindictive, Procrustean, authoritarian candidates for these positions. So if you're an attorney with an ounce of decency or common sense, you don't even get the chance to "lose" that as a judge or prosecutor, because you never become one of those.

darklrd• 13 years ago

I think Google+ auto sends an invite when you add someone to a specific circle.

mcv3• 13 years ago

That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done.

There's no such thing as a "friend request" in G+. You can follow someone, which means you get to see their public posts. The other person will get a notification of that, but won't see anything you post.

Of course the other person can decide to follow you, and then you get to also see their non-public posts that they share with a circle you're in. And of course they get to see your posts (public and appropriate circles).

But even if people don't follow you, G+ can still suggest that you might want to follow them. And this being Google, that could probably be based on the fact that you emailed each other a lot 2 years ago.

So the big question here is: was it a notification that the restrainee followed the restrainer? Or was it Google inadvertently suggesting that the restrainer might want to follow the restrainee?

DanBC15• 13 years ago

A similar case happened in uk where a man sent facebook friend requests to everyone in his email list, which included his ex wife who had a restraining order againts him.

On mobil so links in a while.

jellicle• 13 years ago

Judge: do not contact this woman.

Man: {apparently continues harassing her}

Police: {enforce}

Not seeing what the problem is here. The question of whether he actually did attempt to contact her is a fact-based one for the courts...

Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court.

DanBC15• 13 years ago

I agree with you.

The problem is that the order of events is sometimes:

Person a: "i swear in court under penalties that person B poses a risk of harm to me and I want the court to prevent access"

Judge "person b must not contact person a at all. This is a temporary order until we get a full hearing. Serve the papers so that person b knows about this because their not here for this meeting."

Person b: "my life sucks. I need some friends to support me. I'll join this social network", clicky clicky friend request sent to everyone in person b's list

Papers served

Person b: well, fair enough, i wont contact them.

Police: arrest.

Sadly this is yet another topic being distorted by deranged MRAs.

aestra8• 13 years ago

clicky clicky friend request sent to everyone in person b's list

The person with the restraining order has the responsibly to remove that person from their lists. Email, phone, etc, so they don't accidentally press a wrong button, butt dial, etc. I know once or twice I dialed the wrong contact. They also have the responsibility to drive a different way home so they don't go by their house. They didn't take the proper precautions.

parennoob4• 13 years ago

Wait, so you think putting a person in jail for accidentally forgetting to uncheck a "Send requests to all my contacts" box is a perfectly reasonable thing, and the MRAs are deranged?

I think you need to empathize more with people who are not as familiar with the web as you are. Spotting dark patterns in webapps and avoiding them is a far, far more difficult thing than, for example, not accidentally pressing a speed dial button. Judges should take cognizance of this fact and not treat these actions as "contact".

farginay• 13 years ago

I think that if it was your money paying for a lawyer you'd see the problem more readily.

The way you described the legal process is accurate: have a trial, having findings of fact. The thing people forget is that the process of being arrested, posting bail, paying for and going through the legal system, and putting one's life on hold for a period of time, is often more punishment than the fine or sentence under consideration.

This is why prosecutorial discretion and police discretion are important. When they are abused people suffer. And, sadly the accused have no voice at that stage of the process.

DanBC15• 13 years ago

Cultural note: is this the kind of thing that uk legal aid no longer covers?

einhverfr22• 13 years ago

Similarly, if the woman receives a phone call with heavy breathing from the man's home phone number, it's certainly possible that he didn't do it: perhaps someone broke into his house and called her. He can certainly argue that in court.

And all he has to do to win is raise reasonable doubt. Get a friend to say "I did it as a prank, and he told me not to." No restraining order violated.

aestra8• 13 years ago

Really?

I think that's the legal equivalent of your mom saying "of course he couldn't have committed that murder, he was with me that night, we were watching Netflix."

rmc13• 13 years ago

Sure, but you've have to prove it in court. The criminal justice system is used to sorting out claimed alibi's. I'm doubtful you have discovered some novel hack to the justice system.

dragonwriter6• 13 years ago

And all he has to do to win is raise reasonable doubt. Get a friend to say "I did it as a prank, and he told me not to." No restraining order violated.

The trier of fact -- jury in a jury trial, judge in a bench trial -- is free (expected, even) to assess the credibility of evidence, including witness testimony. The fact that you get a witness to claim an alternative explanation to one that can be inferred from the prosecutions evidence does not, in and of itself, necessarily equate to reasonable doubt.

nathanb• 13 years ago

Bjarne Stroustrup has a great quote which is something like (from memory, so I don't guarantee complete accuracy) "I used to want a computer which was as easy to use as a telephone. I got my wish; I now no longer know how to use my telephone".

The problem is that software (and social networking software in particular) is designed to take advantage of general unfamiliarity / cluelessness and manipulate people into doing something they didn't actually intend to do. The case is legally interesting for two reasons:

1. As DanBC pointed out above, when you have a restraining order against you, you are expected to take reasonable precaution not to violate it inadvertently. However, accidentally running into your ex in the grocery store is not in itself a violation -- so long as you do not then proceed to intentionally violate the order. Could an inadvertent social networking invitation constitute a violation due to lack of reasonable precaution, or it it more like the grocery store scenario?

2. The argument from ignorance. Computer systems are frequently regarded by laypeople as being not just unknown but unknowable. Can it be successfully argued that this crazy computer stuff is just too complicated and that a reasonable person could not take adequate precaution against the whims of an unknowable computer system.

This is the adult, 21st-century version of "the dog ate my homework" -- "Google violated my restraining order". Should it go to court? Absolutely. But it's still of great interest to the HN crowd because -- depending on the technical understanding of the judge and the type of argument chosen by the counsel -- it could end up impacting the design of web services and the sort of legal arguments we see decades into the future.

Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, anything I say about legal matters is probably wrong, if restraining order lasts for more than four hours consult a physician, etc.

mindslight• 13 years ago

Computer systems are frequently regarded by laypeople as being not just unknown but unknowable

In this case, it's not just the laypeople - it's even worse. This particular system is entirely under the control of a third party, so it's behavior is unpredictable to everybody.

qwerty_asdf• 13 years ago

Uh... well...

Consider Google's propensity for certain dark patterns that feel like a kissing cousin to click-jacking.

The plausible deniability applicable to this situation goes something like this.

Guy has a Google e-mail address, but not a Google+ profile. Then he pops on over to YouTube, and wants to comment on some HILARIOUS kitten video...

BUT WAIT! In order to do that...

  1. Set up your channel and begin commenting on YouTube
     What you'll get: [
        "A YouTube channel", 
        "A Google+ profile"
     ]  

  2. > Continue to comment >

  3. Join Google+ by creating your public profile
     
     Enter Profile Data > Upgrade >

  4. Add People > Add All

Using this "Add All" option, absent-mindedly, will of course snarf you're entire address book. Everyone you've ever chatted with, or e-mailed. That list can be quite huge.

So there's a window of reasonable doubt that this COULD have been an innocent mistake. But now, that innocent mistake might mean the difference between an arrest, a night in jail, bail, a misdemeanor conviction, community service, and the difference between being able to truthfully answer "No" to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a 'crime'" on an employment application.

How believable is it that a jilted ex-boyfriend might coincidentally make such a mistake, just as a restraining order was invoked upon him? Well, consider the very recent change that requires a Google+ account to comment on YouTube [0]. A requirement that wasn't necessary in the past? Anyway, too late to hypothesize about that now.

Put 12 random strangers in a room, call it a jury, and find out.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695935

Pxtl• 13 years ago

sigh, and with this comment thread, Hacker News has completed its transformation into Reddit. Well, that and the multi-day outage.

So, where to next?

DanBC15• 13 years ago

Re-read the guidines about accounts less than a year and Reddit. You're right about the flood of MRAs from reddit.

But flag the submissions you think don't belong here and up ote the submissions that do belong here.

stesch• 13 years ago

BTW: http://storify.com/joliss/what-happens-when-our-software-has...

Google+ invite lands man in jail

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