One might expect a high-profile copyright infringement action between two of the world’s largest tech companies—with $8.8 billion in potential damages at stake—would involve cutting-edge technological issues and industry-wide implications. And since its inception in August 2010, Oracle America v. Google—currently before U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California—has left all those involved anxiously awaiting a decision on whether Google’s use of Oracle’s copyrighted Java code in its Android OS, used by over 300 million mobile devices, was allowed by the fair use doctrine.
But another issue has emerged from this epic battle between tech giants: Whether potential and empaneled jurors’ online profiles and social media can—and, equally importantly, should—be “scour[ed] over” by trial lawyers and jury consultants to dissect their politics, religion, relationships, preferences, friends, photographs and other personal information.
