You use Facebook (News - Alert) to keep in touch with friends and family members, share photos and funny videos, argue about politics and reminisce about old times. Now, in some places, it might be legal for a more serious function: legal process serving.

The Associated Press (News - Alert) is reporting today that legal authorities in the U.K. say that a High Court judge in England has approved the use of Facebook to serve legal claims.

In other words: “You've been sued.” Talk about wanting a “dislike” button.

Justice Nigel Teare has permitted legal process serving via Faceook during a pretrial hearing into a case involving two investment managers versus the brokerage firm they are accusing of overcharging them. Lawyers for the two plaintiffs were granted permission to serve the suit against the defendant via the social networking site when they revealed that the plaintiff's last known address was no longer valid and they had no correct e-mail address. They subsequently applied for, and were granted, permission to serve the suit via Facebook. The lawyers told the AP they were confident that defendant's Facebook account was “still active.”

“The counsel told the judge that someone from the firm had been monitoring the account and they'd seen that he's recently added two new friends, which made the judge chuckle,” said Jenni Jenkins, an associate with the London law firm Memery Crystal. 

While U.K. law normally mandates that legal claims be served in hard copy, there is precedent for more unusual methods of delivery if a party cannot be physically tracked down.