Cicero town president wants MySpace poser's identity revealed

Official pushes for identity of creator to be revealed; seeks legal action

By Josh Noel | Tribune reporter

11:53 PM EDT, May 17, 2008

Jesus is on MySpace.

So is Ernest Hemingway.

And so, for a time, was Cicero Town President Larry Dominick.

The only problem is that none of those profiles on the popular social networking Web site was created by the person it claimed to represent.

Though Jesus and Hemingway have yet to complain, Dominick wasn't too pleased when town officials found two pages claiming to be his, replete with photos and questionable comments about his sexuality and ethics.

MySpace has removed the pages, but Cicero attorneys are asking a Cook County judge to compel the company to identify the perpetrators. MySpace has yet to reply, a town spokesman said.

"It was silly juvenile stuff, but it was defamatory," Cicero spokesman Dan Proft said. "We want to know who is responsible so we can go after them."

Proft said Dominick is suing in his official capacity—and on the taxpayers' dime—because the comments are tied to his job as town president.

Long a scourge of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, "impostor profiles"—hijacking someone else's identity online—have become an easy and nearly anonymous way of poking fun or seeking revenge. While several lawsuits have been filed against the creators of such pages, others say they are protected free speech.

"It's a balancing test between the 1st Amendment and the rights of an innocent third party," said Bart Lazar, an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago, who specializes in Internet privacy.

"A lot of these things are outrageous enough that someone wouldn't believe them. But if you are a principal, a teacher or a coach and there's an allegation of molestation, that's your job."

Virtually anyone can create such a profile and include a photo alongside loads of personal information, including educational background, the figures you'd most like to meet, favorite band and hobbies.

People signing up for MySpace or Facebook are not asked for proof of identification but merely required to click a box agreeing to the terms of service—not exactly a foolproof system for determining the person at the computer is who he claims to be. The result has been hundreds or thousands of fraudulent profiles, many of them seemingly harmless.

Experts say the creator of an impostor profile can be easy to track down if the creator doesn't take pains to cover his or her tracks. But if they do—for example, creating the page on a public computer, such as at a library—finding perpetrators can be difficult.

"There's an element of this we just have to live with," said Dave Donoghue, an attorney with DLA Piper who specializes in intellectual property litigation. "It's impossible to have large-scale social networking sites, which people clearly want, without having some risk of this."

Greater policing of social networking sites would be impractical, Donoghue said, comparing it to air travel.

"To make air travel 100 percent safe, the background checks and checks of personal possessions of each individual getting on an airplane would be so cumbersome, time consuming and expensive, it would make air travel impractical," he said. "There has to be a balance."

As in Dominick's case, impostor profile cases have regularly landed in court. This month, an Indiana judge ordered Facebook to turn over information that might identify who set up a fake profile for a high school dean. In Wisconsin, a 16-year-old boy sought revenge against a police officer by making a fake MySpace page in the officer's name, and last year in Pennsylvania, a principal sued four former students who did the same to him.

Impostor profiles are prevalent enough that MySpace has created an elaborate protocol to assist victims of the abuse. In addition to contacting customer care, victims are told to send the company what it calls a "salute"—a photo of themselves holding a handwritten sign that says "MySpace.com" and the identification number of the offending profile.

A MySpace spokeswoman said the company is resigned to the fact that impostor profiles will emerge among the 110 million people who use the Web site each month, despite hundreds of employees monitoring content. If an impostor profile is put up, the company tries to remove the page within 72 hours, she said.

Because impostor profiles can be created with fake names, the most important piece of information MySpace can provide to law enforcement is the Internet protocol address of the computer where the page was created, she said. MySpace, which declined comment about Dominick, only provides that information when subpoenaed, she said.

Facebook said in an e-mailed statement that the company removes all fake profiles and mandates that users use their real names, but the spokesman would not comment further.

Where the courts stand on such pages is still developing.

In the case of the Pennsylvania high school principal, the fake MySpace page called him a bevy of unsavory names and said he kept beer at the school and had sex with students, according to news reports.

One of the students responsible for the page was suspended, reassigned to an alternative school and barred from attending his graduation, but a U.S. District Court judge later ruled those punishments violated the student's 1st Amendment rights.

Proft, the Cicero town spokesman, said the digs against Dominick should not be protected by the 1st Amendment.

"It's not parody or a critique of performance; it's a libelous statement against a public official," he said. "[Dominick] understands well that suffering slings and arrows from disgruntled people and opponents comes with the territory, but there are boundaries. It's important to send the message that people cannot act with impunity."

Freelance reporter Joseph Ruzich contributed to this report.

jbnoel@tribune.com