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The Irish Times - Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Ferdinand was asked to demonstrate precisely how he had gestured towards Terry, writes DANIEL TAYLOR

ON THE pavement outside Westminster Magistrates Court, a lone Chelsea fan in a replica shirt and baseball cap held up a life-size cardboard cut-out of John Terry and tried to attract the attention of the small army of photographers jostling for position behind the metal fences.

Inside up the stairs, turn right past the security guys and through the two sets of double doors Terry sat behind the glass-walled dock of courtroom one. Wearing a pale grey suit, salmon-pink tie and polished shoes, he could have been dressed for a summer wedding. Instead, he was face-to-face with Anton Ferdinand, the opponent he called a f**king black c**t while playing for Chelsea in a Premier League match against QPR last October.

It was the row, ultimately, that led to Terry losing the England captaincy although he still played in Euro 2012 which, in turn, brought about the dispute between Fabio Capello and the Football Association that saw the Italian resign as national team manager. And it all started from a dispute over a penalty-kick that was never given.

Ferdinand was angry that Terry thought he should have been awarded one; Terry barged into him. The two players swapped insults. Terry waved his hand in front of his nose, as if to indicate that Ferdinand had bad breath. Handbags, they agreed after the match. Banter, football stuff, shake hands and keep it on the pitch. But then it got serious. Ferdinand was shown some YouTube footage and told he was trending on Twitter. It had become global news, as he put it. By the time court case 1103985595, listed as John George Terry 07/12/80, had finished for its first day, it was difficult to recollect how many times, even roughly, the word c**t had been used. Forty? Fifty? One hundred? More?

The only certainty was that it was going to be a difficult day for newspapers, radio and television when it came to their asterisk and bleeping policy.

Early in his evidence, Ferdinand was unsure about whether or not he could swear in court. Its a serious issue, the prosecutor Duncan Penny told him. Please do not worry about the language. What did you call Mr Terry? Ferdinand replied: A c**t. And so it began.

At times Ferdinand could be seen looking to his mother, Janice, and other relatives in the front row of the public gallery. Along from them sat Chelseas chairman, Bruce Buck. Representatives from the football anti-racism and discrimination organisation Kick It Out, and the Football Association were also among the assorted media. The court had doled out tickets in the manner of a football club distributing press passes, and the queue of reporters turned away at the door was substantial.

They missed an extraordinary day in which Ferdinand was asked at one point to demonstrate to the court precisely how he had gestured towards Terry on the pitch. He did so with a clenched fist, bending his elbow and delivering a pumping action. Asked what it was supposed to signify, Ferdinand replied: A shag.

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C-word has its day in court as Ferdinand replays face-off

By JOEL T. EMLEN The McLane Law Firm

A: Most often, yes, because when it comes to social networking sites, there is little that is truly personal or private.

Social networking sites have over one billion users worldwide. Facebook alone, is approaching one billion and has more than 150 million in the United States (an estimated 40 percent of the U.S. population). Facebook users in the United States spend more than 50 billion minutes per month on the site the equivalent of 100,000 years engaging in a whole host of activities, such as posting pictures and videos, giving status updates, or making comments on their friends' Facebook walls. Twitter is not far behind with more than 100 million U.S. accounts and in excess of 400 million tweets per day worldwide. Given that these sites are social, it should come as no surprise that users often do not think critically about the content of their posts or believe the information is personal and private because only friends can see it.

Courts, however, are finding that parties in lawsuits must disclose information posted on social media sites, and some courts are compelling parties to turn over their log-in information to opposing counsel. The information subject to disclosure may include publicly accessible portions of the site, as well as what is available only to friends. But if your friends tag you in any posting, that information is shared with others, not just your friends.

Generally, for a party to obtain information available only to friends, there must be some evidence found in the public view of that party's profile that is relevant to the case. Of course, if your friend is the opposing party, this limitation would not apply, and it raises the question especially in the context of employment and workers compensation disputes about whether to be connected on these sites with co-workers and supervisors.

Social networking sites let us communicate more easily with more people than ever before. With the click of a button or the touch of an app, we can connect or reconnect with family and friends and share photographs and videos of birthdays, holidays, cookouts and our most recent vacation. But you also must know that information posted to these sites is not personal and private and may become public and shared with others in a lawsuit. Staying vigilant and scrutinizing this information is a must. Joel Emlen can be reached at joel.emlen@mclane.com.

Know the Law is a bi-weekly column sponsored by The McLane Law Firm.

We invite your questions of business law. Questions and ideas for future columns should be addressed to: Know the Law, The McLane Law Firm, P.O. Box 326, Manchester, NH 03105-0326 or emailed to knowthelaw@mclane.com. Know the Law provides general legal information, not legal advice. We recommend that you consult a lawyer for guidance specific to your particular situation.

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A Question of Law Information posted on social networking sites isn't private

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all carved out very powerful positions for themselves in the social networking space, so it was inevitable that eventually they would start to bump up hard against each other.

And its Twitter that seems to be making some powerful enemies fast. At least thats the interpretation Business Insider is making of the recent Facebook/Yahoo patent settlement deal.

In case you missed it, Facebook and the struggling portal company appear to have come to terms over the patent argument kicked off by former CEO Scott Thompson who lost his job a few months back after it was revealed he had been padding his CV.

Now, BI has read between the lines of this recent deal. BI explained, Buried in the press release announcing the settlement of Yahoo's big patent-infringement lawsuit was this interesting nugget: Yahoo and Facebook will also work together to bring Yahoos large media event coverage to Facebook users by collaborating on social integrations on the Yahoo site. Large media event coverage: Where have we heard that before?

The article asserted that this is a direct challenge to Twitters stated objective to aggressively pursue coverage of large media events.

Twitter is finding its not a good idea to poke a giant in the eye, even when youre growing heavier by the day yourself. Remember only last week, Twitter pulled the plug on its tweet stream cross sharing deal with LinkedIn.

Business Insider said, Twitter and Yahoo inked in a series of partnerships in 2010. How long before Twitter flips Yahoo the bird, too?

If youre reading this story, the good news is you can stop right now. The FBI is shutting down the domains affected by the DNSChanger malware, reported Mashable. The malware sent users to internet sites running advertisements for the Trojans creators, and for a while they made out like bandits until they were caught and arrested also like bandits.

Rather than rip out the boxes and compromise the Web experience of almost 300,000 affected machines, the FBI has spent months warning people to check their systems, including providing a simple site for consumers to see if they were affected. We could point you to those tools, but whats the point? If you can read this, you wont need them, and if you cant well... you get the picture.

Gigaom also gets in on the action, by pointing out that this is not the first internet doomsday scenario by a long shot. Under the headline 5 Doomsdays from the Internet's past, the site recounts stories of the Melissa virus in 1999, the infamous Y2k bug, also in 2000 the I Love You virus, the 2009 the April Fools day Conficker worm, and finally the 2010 Here You Have virus. Its worth a read, if only to brush up on your trivia when Christmas party season rolls around.

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Monday Grok: There can be only one — social networking’s silverbacks getting tetchy

09-Jul-12, 1:59 PM | Cher Jimenez, InterAksyon.com | Philippine News Agency | Xinhua

A doctor examines a child at the Kantha Bopha children's hospital, which first alerted the World Health Organization to the mystery killer disease that has felled dozens of children, mostly between the ages of 2 and 3. AFP PHOTO

InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5

PHNOM PENH - Health professionals from Cambodia and the World Health Organization are closer to identifying the mysterious disease that has killed at least 52 children, but the Philippines is not letting its guard down as it ordered the screening of all inbound travelers.

The latest laboratory results showed that Enterovirus Type 71 (EV-71) was found among children who had died from undiagnosed syndrome since April, according to a joint statement of Cambodia's Health Ministry and the WHO released Sunday midnight.

"Based on the latest laboratory results, a significant proportion of the patients' samples tested positive for Enterovirus 71," said the statement.

According to the joint statement, a final review of all tested hospitalized cases is being done to detect the undiagnosed syndrome.

Of the 59 children affected by the syndrome 52 have died, it said.

Sixty-four young children out of 66 admitted to the largest children's hospitals in Cambodia since the end of April were killed by encephalitis.

Philippe Buchy, head of Virology Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia, wrote in an email on Sunday that 15 out of 24 patients with the encephalitis/pulmonary disease were tested positive for EV-71.

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Cambodia, WHO closer to identifying killer disease as Philippines screens travelers

HANOI, Vietnam A deadly form of a common childhood illness has been linked to many of the mysterious child deaths in Cambodia that caused alarm after a cause could not immediately be determined, health officials said Monday.

Lab tests have confirmed that a virulent strain of hand, foot and mouth disease known as EV-71 is to blame for many of the 59 cases reviewed, including 52 deaths, according to a joint statement from the World Health Organization and Cambodian Health Ministry. The numbers were lowered from the initial report of 62 cases.

EV-71 is a virus that can result in paralysis, brain swelling and death. Most of the Cambodian cases involved children under 3 who experienced fever, respiratory problems that quickly progressed and sometimes neurological symptoms.

Hand, foot and mouth disease has been raging across Asia, and usually causes a telltale rash. WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said rashes were seen in only a few of the Cambodian cases, and it's possible that steroids administered by doctors could have masked the symptom.

The lab results also identified other diseases in some cases, including mosquito-borne dengue fever and Streptococcus suis, a germ commonly seen in pigs that sometimes infects people, often causing meningitis and hearing loss, Bhatiasevi said.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is spread by sneezing, coughing and contact with fluid from blisters or infected feces. It is caused by a group of enteroviruses in the same family as polio. No vaccine or specific treatment exists, but illness is typically mild and most children recover quickly without problems.

The virus gets its name from the symptoms it causes, including rash, mouth sores and blisters covering the hands and feet. Many infected children are not sickened at all, but remain capable of spreading it to others.

Neighboring Vietnam has been battling a surging number of hand, foot and mouth disease cases for the past few years, with EV-71 also wreaking havoc there. Last year, the disease sickened more than 110,000 people in Vietnam and killed 166, mostly children whose immune systems were not strong enough to fend off the infection.

China is also experiencing an outbreak, and more than 240 people have died of the disease there this year, according to China's health ministry.

The Cambodia investigation is continuing, but the H5N1 bird flu virus, SARS and Nipah a deadly virus usually spread by fruit bats or pigs have all been ruled out.

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Deadly form of hand, foot and mouth disease linked to mysterious child killer in Cambodia