Romano v. Steelcase Inc

In Romano v. Steelcase Inc., 30 Misc3d 426, 907 N.Y.S.2d 650 [Sup. Ct. Suffolk County 2010], a personal injury action where the defendant sought access to plaintiff's Facebook and MySpace accounts, the court found that defendant was entitled to all deleted pages and relevant information due to the liberal discovery policies of New York and found that any privacy concerns of the plaintiff were outweighed by defendant's need for the information. (Romano, 30 Misc3d at 432-35). The court went on to hold that plaintiff knew her information may become publicly available and neither social networking site guarantees complete privacy, therefore "plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy." (Id.) Further, it "is the very nature and purpose of these social networking sites" to consent to share personal information with others. (Id.)