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Nevermind telling your side of the story in court, or to your best friend.
Cyberjustice is starting to be dispensed to resolve civil disputes and personal disagreements. Sometimes it's left to ordinary folks to vote on winners and losers.
Take eQuibbly, for example. It lets people bring their personal and business disputes online — anything from complaints about loud music to boyfriends ogling other women to how restaurant tips should be shared.
Founder and president Lance Soskin cites the case of the ogling boyfriend and noted that people agreed with his fiancée that he should concentrate on her when they're out together.
"He responded with, 'Well I gave up my porn for her' and he thought that was quite an achievement," Soskin said from Toronto.
"Eventually people on the site just convinced him he was being rude and uncouth."
Participants read both sides of an argument and vote on who wins the dispute, which Soskin called "crowd voting." The Web application is free to its users and obviously does not deal with criminal cases or more serious matters like divorce.
Technology analyst Duncan Stewart said theoretically the "crowd" should be impartial.
"There's this whole wisdom of the crowd thing — a million people know more than one person no matter how smart that one person is," said Stewart, director of Deloitte Canada Research for Technology, Media and Telecommunications.
"People are voluntarily contributing to the public good."
