What's the source of your belief? Just a guess based on your common sense? I'm curious. I still think they should add the feature.
LOL. It's not a belief; it's a fact. Anything that creates a danger of injury creates a risk of liability. For both freecycle & craigslist, the risk to users would be much smaller because people do not share details about their children or their family lives on those websites. In fact, the risk of using those websites is equivalent to the risk of having a pizza delivered. It's clearly different to disclose the intimate details both of one's family life and of one's residence.
I didn't exactly advocate revealing intimate details of one's family life or residence, but merely a geographic area and perhaps what age range of kids one was interest in finding for play dates. I guess perhaps a DYS scholar would be able to take that information and figure out someone's exact identity, but it would likely be beyond the skills of 99.9% of the populace.
My source? Personal experience. I'm a lawyer.
I can tell you that the area of website liability is still largely untested. The extent that websites will be liable when their users suffer an injury has yet to be decided (and will depend on the jurisdiction, the judge, etc.).
What a coincidence! So am I.
If by "largely untested" you mean that your position has no actual legal support, it would be more honest to just come out and say that next time. Just calling a forward-looking opinion a fact doesn't actually make it a fact. I remain open to an actual fact if you come up with one; I'm generally happy to find out I'm wrong on an issue.
Children's things are regularly freecycled, BTW. That's a little different from getting a pizza delivered.
EDIT: I guess some people here do post first names of their children, etc., so such details might make it more possible to identify someone. But obviously no one would be forced to take part in a play-date feature, just like they're not forced to reveal other identifying profile information if they don't want to. But yes, theoretically, someone could post the names of their entire family, complete with SSNs and birth dates.
Let's say that were to happen-- do you think that that would weaken or strengthen your potential case for liability? And do you have any support for your opinion, aside from a statement that it's a fact?
Until you do, I would say that we have a difference of
opinion. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that it's an honest one, and not just that you don't like the cut of my jib.
