Email Policy / Facebook Policy?

I recently read an interesting article by Jonathan Goodgold in the New Jersey Law Journal on the employment law consequences of Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook or My Space. 

There are two central questions here: First, what, if any, rights or restrictions should be placed on what information employees can post on their personal web sites, Facebook accounts, etc.?  Second, what, if any, restrictions should there be on how potential employers can make use of information posted publicly?

Goodgold calls for clearly defined web policies:

    This then raises a host of questions -- what occurs when an employee is on his or her private time and not using the employer's technology? What occurs when the communications are not private e-mails, but public postings on Web 2.0? The lesson to be taken from Stengart is that employers should be working on Internet posting/communication policies for conduct when employees are off-work. Further, such policies must define what type of conduct is acceptable, such as blogging on politics, and what is not acceptable, such as posting disparaging comments about the employer or posting racy or otherwise inappropriate pictures that would be frowned upon by employers.

The essential difference between this and emails is that email policies generally define what an employee can do on company time and using company computers, whereas “policies” governing Facebook type applications try to define what an employee can do on their personal time using their own computers.  Furthermore restrictions on “inappropriate” content (which in many cases is little more than what you can see on a daily basis in Abercrombie & Fitch or Calvin Klein ads) opens the Pandora’s box of unbridled censorship.

The question of what a potential employer should be able to look at is a much different issue.  As Goodgold points out, “if an employee does not want an employer to learn about something they post, the answer is commonsensical, do not post it, do not blog it, do not tweet it and do not post a picture of it on the Internet. If an employee would not say something to their employer in person, do not do it on the Internet.” This is the equivalent of email messages: emails are like postcards. Do not email anybody anything that you do not want the world to see.

No doubt this issue will continue to agitate people and eventually be litigated out. However, an employer would do well to think twice before trying to censor employee’s behavior when not at work.

Comments

[BN]

My firm recently distributed a (paper!) memo forbidding the use of social networks on firm computers. The reasons were that such activities could expose its computers to virus attacks, and leak confidential information.

I was considering sending out my own memo banning email, since email actually does pose a virus risk, and potential breach of confidential information. :)

[UK thesis]

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