Service of Process - courtesy of Facebook

My apologies for anyone that's actually been checking in to my blog since my last post in (ahem) October. I have been tied up with a trip to England and various business activities. And now that it's no longer biking season (at least not for me), that ruled out fully half my blog topics.

But I did read a fascinating article on the BBC this morning that I thought would be of interest to some of you.

The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court in Canberra, Australia, was persuaded by two lawyers from Meyer Vandenberg that a default judgment could be served to the defendants via their Facebook pages.

Having tried to contact the defendants in person at their last known address, by mail, and all the other usual methods, the two lawyers, Mark McCormack and Jason Oliver, did an internet search on the defendants' known email addresses, and up popped one of their Facebook accounts.

They matched the biographical information they had on the defendants with their Facebook accounts and the court deemed this sufficient to demonstrate that these were, in fact, the same people as the defendants.

Australian courts in the past have allowed people to be served via email or even text message.

I wonder when we'll see our first service-by-internet case in Canada?