Web 2.0 and E-Discovery

Abstract

Companies today face an overwhelming amount of digital information, and many of them are involved at some point in civil litigation. When a company is in the discovery (pretrial) phase of civil litigation, it usually exchanges information, including documents, with the opposing party in the litigation. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern civil litigation in federal courts, were amended in 2006 to provide additional guidance to parties with regard to electronically stored information. The management teams of many U.S. corporations are working with their IT departments and lawyers in order to understand the sources of electronically stored information that may be potentially relevant to their litigation. Over the last 20 years, technology has grown increasingly more complex, from the early mainframe and personal computers to sophisticated e-mail and instant messaging applications that enable users to send and receive millions of messages every day. This chapter addresses the issues companies may face related to the discovery of electronically stored information as a result of new communication technologies, including Web 2.0 applications.