Radar

On the Docket
Juicy Campus and New Jersey Investigators So Far Playing Nice

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The founders of anonymous collegiate gossip hub Juicy Campus may not agree with the New Jersey attorney general's decision to investigate the site for allegedly violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act, but they are (for now) cooperating with officials. A spokesperson in the attorney's office tells Radar that the Juicy Campus team has submitted all of the information investigators asked for in their subpoena.

Juicy Campus has raised the ire of school officials and students alike for its freewheeling message boards, on which people have taken to posting public comments about slutty coeds and coke-snorting frat boys. Which is bad in and of itself, but even worse when your parents and potential employers Google your name and discover what you've really been doing with that $40,000 a year in tuition! The site technically forbids users from posting content that "is unlawful, threatening, abusive, tortious, defamatory, obscene, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy," though that "Everyone Behave!" rule has pretty much been thrown out the window.

After a student at Princeton University objected to his name and address being published on the site, the New Jersey e-commerce investigative unit decided to explore whether the site violated the Consumer Fraud Act, which deals "non disclosures or erroneous information in terms of a commercial transaction." State Attorney General Anne Milgram issued a subpoena asking for info on how the site verifies the age and college affiliation of a user; a spokesperson now says, "The material came in and it's being reviewed," but declined to elaborate.

Juicy Campus called the investigation "absurd" in its official statement to the investigation, but has complied rather than head to court to fight the subpoena. Probably because they're not so worried: both Congress and the courts have already declared that a website can't be held responsible when someone makes an inane, defamatory comments about someone else in a message thread. Yeah, the site is odious, but it ain't fraudulent.

By Neel Shah   04/21/08 4:00 PM
Related: Juicy Campus, On the Docket, Princeton
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