United States v. Vayner 2014 2014 was a landmark year in establishing the admissibility and stance of screenshots and printouts of social media in litigation, with one of the more notable examples of this being the evaluation of a printout from the Russian equivalent of Facebook (VK.com) in United [...]
Read MoreThe Foundations of Digital Evidence
Re. Vee Vinhnee When traditional courts met with electronic evidence... The 2005 case of Re. Vee Vinhnee is, to this day, a leading case in the standards of admissibility of digital evidence in the courts, with its findings ever conclusive and integral to eDiscovery a decade later. In this [...]
Read MoreCybercrime Update: Instascamming
The Insta-Scam (and Instaspam components) is a relatively new cyber scam operated on social media and targeting users on mediums such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The Traditional Insta-Scam Scammers post pictures on social media of free items, giveaways and high-end brands, encouraging [...]
Read MoreCybercrime Update: CatPhishing
Ways to Protect Yourself Online from "Crooked Sweethearts" Catphishing (or “Catfishing”) is a “romance scam” and form of fraud, highly popularised by the use of social media networks, online chat forums and documentary-turned television series by the same name. The term “catfish” was [...]
Read MoreSpoliation Sanctions: Social Media Clean Up
Lester v. Allied Concrete [2014] In this rare instance, Virginia State fined an attorney $522,000 in spoliation sanctions for advising his client to “clean up” his Facebook account during litigation proceedings; deeming it to be the largest eDiscovery spoliation sanction to that point. A [...]
Read MoreSocial Media Case Law – Admissibility of Online Evidence
Commonwealth v. Purdy [2011] Email, ESI and Electronic Communication: Admissibility of Evidence This early 2011 criminal case disputed the admissibility of emails as evidence, and the standards of authentication necessary for considering both email and content from social media as genuine [...]
Read MoreSocial Media Evidence – MySpace
Griffin v Maryland [2011] A History of Social Media Evidence - MySpace Content The case was one of the first landmark cases to address the admissibility of social media evidence in trials, in the form of a MySpace printout. In this murder trial, the defendant’s girlfriend (Jessica [...]
Read MoreSocial Media Discovery Blog
Welcome to the WebPreserver Blog! Are you a Lawyer, Law Enforcement official or otherwise have an interest in legal issues regarding online evidence gathering and preservation? If so this is the Blog for you! We're dedicated to offering information, news, cases, studies, and best practice advice [...]
Read More