Most of the time, I really don't care who you are. My little portion of the blogosphere is about ideas and information - and it doesn't matter whether you're really a 60 year old gay Republican from South Carolina or a dock worker in Oakland who just likes to pretend they teach at a college.

So all the fuss about the Lori Drew-MySpace case has me a little skeptical. If you're unfamiliar with the details of the case, you can find most of them here. Long story short... a mom is St. Louis supposedly created a MySpace profile for an imaginary 16 year old boy in order to trick a 13 year old girl in the neighborhood into telling her stuff (and because she was mad at her) and the girl committed suicide. The mom, Lori Drew, is being charged with "accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress" - and tried in Federal Court in Los Angeles, where MySpace has its servers. One key to getting a conviction is evidently the idea that Drew violated MySpace's terms of service - by setting up a profile that didn't accurately reflect her own personal information.

And everyone is saying, "OMG! I cold go to jail because I joined that forum on turnip recipes and since I didn't want anyone I know to find out how much I like turnips, I made up a fake name. I am in such trouble (or at least I could be)."

Let's make a few distinctions...

• Anonymity is the idea of not having a personality or persona on the web. You leave a comment on my Google blog that has no name attached to it. If you do it again tomorrow, I don't know if it you or some other anonymous comment-leaver. You can't form cyber-relationships, really, because when you come back, no one can tell it's you. That real anonymity.
  


• Partial anonymity is the idea of creating a some meaningless code for an ID. You can be A14key9 or Parrothead32 at a forum or in a chat room. If you key that ID for a period of time, people know it's "you" (by which I mean that they know it's the same user they talked to last time), but they also know there's only limited disclosure coming from you.
  


• A false identity is an identity that is made to seem real (which allows other people out there to become more emotionally involved with you) but does not actually represent who you really are. Sometime these sorts of false identities are only partial. Someone creates a chat room ID that says they're Sue L. and they're a 17 y.o. high school junior who likes to cheerlead. In truth they're a 36 y.o. male, and you get the picture...
  


• Partial disclosure is the idea of creating an online profile at some site that represents your true details. You say you're Sue L. and you're really name is Suzanne Leicht. You say you're 28; maybe the truth is that you're 31, but, hey, it's close (and you tell people you're 28 in the office where you work, too).
  


• Finally, there's reasonably full disclosure. My name is Greg Cruey. I'm 48 y.o., married, have two grown kids and a spoiled dog, and, well, again - you get the idea.

Anonymity is not going away because of this court case. Even if there's no place else on the web left for it, you'll always be able to comment anonymously at my personal blog. Its moderated; but there are very few comments I don't approve. The issue in the MySpace case isn't anonymity or violating the terms of service at MySpace. Those are tools in the commission of a crime, not crimes in and of themselves.

A comment at the Concurring Opinions website addresses the problems with the blogosphere-geek point of view on this case that the sky is suddenly falling and we're all going to go to jail if Lori Drew loses this case. A few quotes from comment:

...I see nothing absurd about this. First, you say that it is vague. But it isn't. it says, you access websites on their terms. What is vague about that?

Second, you say it allows them to write the criminal code. Um, so? We often allow the permissions of others to define lawful conduct.... Now, look, I am sure there is a lot of lying going on, on the internet. Okay. But all of it is related to crimes or torts? I doubt it.

"Why is this case being prosecuted at all?" Because a girl is dead.

"Why is this case going to trial?" see above.

...I always tell my clients that the simplest way to avoid legal trouble is this: if it seems like it ought to be illegal, it probably is. ... This is a classic example of that principle in action. And more power to the government for doing so.

The comment was left by A.W. - not what I call full disclosure and vague enough to qualify in my mind as partial anonymity. Maybe he's Andrew Williams. Maybe he just likes A&W rootbeer...


Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Florea Marius Catalin