We have recently learned [1] of the Alberta order for service of process by Facebook.
An English court has now ordered service of a injunction via Twitter — where the Twitter user was anonymous, impersonating a blogger (it’s a complicated world out there!): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8285954.stm [2]
I suppose there could be interesting questions if the Twitter user was not in the jurisdiction of the court, depending on (among other things) whether the rules of practice permit service out of the jurisdiction without prior leave of the court.
The complainant thought it was more efficient to get an ex parte injunction and serve it via Twitter than to address the owners of the Twitter service in California and try to get them to apply some technical remedy.
Would a Canadian court make such an order, given the growing (but still small) number of precedents (but only one in Canada so far) of treating social media as one more alternative ‘place’ on which indirect service can be made?