The issue over the use of photos of Ashley Alexandra Dupre taken from social networking sites like MySpace has just taken another twist. Her court-appointed attorney, Kelley Drye’s Don D. Buchwald, has attacked the media for invading his client’s privacy. The press release (PDF) from the attorney says the alleged call girl was “thrust into the public glare at age 22 without her consent”. He goes on to accuse some

The mystery of Ashley Alexandra Dupre’s disappearing MySpace page is solved. The profile of Eliot Spitzer’s alleged call girl at myspace.com/ninavenetta was accidentally deleted by MySpace, in response to the flood of people checking out her profile. This set off a feeding frenzy between cyber squatters jostling for control of the hottest space on the social networking site. The profile changes hands frequently, as MySpace canceled accounts, before finally restoring

The newspaper watchdog in the UK, the Press Complaints Commission, is stepping into the debate over the use of material from social networking sites. The head of the body, Tim Toulmin, told the BBC that the organisation has commissioned research to find out if people are aware that material they upload could be used by journalists. It follows complaints to the PCC from people about material used by the press

The BBC has e-mailed staff over the use of photos from social networking sites, reports the MediaGuardian. It advices journalists to be cautious about the use of such personal material. The advice goes beyond talking about issues copyright and verification, mentioning the idea of “intended audiences“. The e-mail told staff that: Simply because material may have been put into the public domain may not always give the media the right

While Facebook has been attracting the headlines recently and had the chattering classes talking, MySpace has quietly been growing in the UK. Figures from Nielsen/Net Ratings showed that MySpace had 6.5m unique UK visitors in May 2007. This compares to 3.96m for Bebo and 3.2m for Facebook. But there is a twist. MySpace may be leading the way in visitor numbers, but its social networking rivals are proving to be