This case is based on the decision United States v. Drew 259 F.R.D. 449 (C.D. Cal. 2009) by the United States District Court for the Central District of California:

Lori Drew is the Midwestern mother who allegedly participated in a hoax on the social- networking website MySpace that ended in the suicide of junior high student Megan Meier. Meier was formerly friends with Drews daughter until the two had a falling out. There were also allegations that Meier had acted in negative ways toward Drews daughter. In retaliation or perhaps as a prank, Drew collaborated with her daughter and Drews former employee in creating a fake profile of a 16-year-old boy. Using the profile, they friended, befriended, flirted, and started an online relationship with Megan Meier. After some time, the messages became nasty. One message to Meier said, I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends. The harsh messages continued, finally culminating with: You are a bad person, and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you. Meier responded: Youre the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over. She committed suicide a few minutes later.

In the wake of this tragedy, prosecutors attempted to find a way to charge Drew with a crime, but her actions did not fall under any of the traditional applications of existing statutes. However, one prosecutor theorized that Drew could be charged under accomplice liability for aiding and abetting unauthorized access to a computer system under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a law normally used for computer hackers. In bringing its case, the government argued that Drew aided and abetted the violation of the CFAA because she encouraged the creation of a fake MySpace profile, violating MySpaces Terms of Use (TOU) which required truthful information from users. Since access to the MySpace system is premised on satisfying the TOU, lying about ones identity by creating a fake profile would give access without proper authorization thus violating the CFAA.

A. Please answer the following issues with a maximum of 800 words in total:

• Was this a proper CFAA use? What role does prosecutorial discretion play here?
• In your point of view, are current laws sufficient to handle these situations or do we need new laws? (e. g.anti-cyberbullying statutes).
• Who should regulate social networks? The government? Users? The companies?
• What duties do social networks have to enforce their terms of use?
• What duty does the government have to help enforce the terms?
• Do social networks create the possibility of new crimes or just new locations for old

crimes to take place?

B. In addition to this case study above, please reflect upon what you have learned about having to take from this business law course. Express your impression on this course and the academic effect it had upon you in a personal analysis of no more than 200 words.