You know we love social media here at On The Case, and you might have noticed that mandatory arbitration is a big topic for us, too. So when we came across a new paper focusing on social media sites' use of arbitration clauses, well, we couldn't help ourselves. If our "friends" or "followers" want to sue their favorite Internet people connectors, we wondered, would they find themselves in court or at their nearest arbitration provider? Status update: the answer was surprising.

The paper, authored by Suffolk University Law School professor Michael Rustad and colleagues, said that approximately 25 percent of the 157 social media sites reviewed include some form of arbitration clause in their mandatory user agreements. That percentage constitutes a "greater incidence" than the "10 percent found in a previous study of retail sites," according to the Rustad group. Seventeen of the arbitration clauses reviewed made alternative dispute resolution mandatory, the paper said, and 11 of the clauses prohibit the users from bringing class actions. The paper kicks off its conclusion section with a high-alert siren: Social networking sites, it warns, are creating a "liability-free zone for themselves in cyberspace by employing arbitration clauses coupled with class-action waivers and other one-sided provisions."

But wait! It turns out that the 25 percent of social media sites that either require or allow arbitration doesn't include the world's largest social network, Facebook, or the of-the-moment micro-blogging site, Twitter. The terms of service for both of these social media giants actually require users to bring claims in state or federal court in California (Santa Clara County for Facebook, San Francisco for Twitter). Similarly, U.S. users of Foursquare must check in to a Manhattan court to resolve their disputes. Those of you who use LinkedIn to track colleagues can also go to court in Santa Clara, or, if your claim is for less than $10,000, you can opt for arbitration.

So which sites do require user to commit to arbitration either by just using the site (a "browsewrap agreement") or by accepting the site terms via click (a "clickwrap" agreement)? Dating site Match.com, for one. Rustad provided us with the dispute resolution clauses his team reviewed, and Match was the most prominent that required mandatory arbitration. That list also included fairly well-known sites like MeetUp and CafeMom, but it's dominated by sites that are more, um, targeted -- VampireFreaks and WriteaPrisoner among them.

Rustad agreed that social media mandatory arbitration clauses probably affect far fewer users than the millions who can go to court if they have a problem with Facebook or Twitter. Nevertheless, he argued, the takeaway from his study should be that more Internet sites are adopting arbitration clauses, since the percentage has more than doubled since a study of retail sites three years ago. Rustad also noted many social media sites bury arbitration clauses, violating the American Arbitration Association protocol requiring that users be told in easily comprehensible terms that they're giving up their right to sue, and that users in the United States can be forced into venues as far away as Hong Kong and India.

Interestingly, Rustad said his team's review of the association's records showed that no social media claims were resolved through arbitration. We imagine that will change in the years to come. And, no matter what, social media-related litigation -- a space with nearly innumerable plaintiffs and constantly evolving privacy battles -- is a practice area to watch.

We reached out to both Facebook and Twitter to inquire why they chose the courts over arbitration; Facebook declined to comment and Twitter didn't get back to us.

(Reporting by Erin Geiger Smith)

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