Employer or Employee Who is owner of friends and followers on social networks like Facebook twitter Linked in

Employer or Employee Who is owner of friends and followers on social networks like Facebook twitter Linked in

In the United States, employees have no right to privacy over emails they write at work, even if they are using personal email accounts. Employers are within their rights to employ snooping software to watch everything workers do with company computers. That might suggest any Facebook or Twitter work done by an employee on company property belongs to the company.

This happens in each country does not matter you are in USA or UK or India or any other nations
Company keeps track and watch what employee is doing on his laptop or netbook or which sites he is surfing

Once employee resigns from his job or company, employer fires an employee from his job, and then question arises

Who will get to keep the friends and followers of the employee who got them while he or she was working with the company?

Who owns Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn Connections?
Once employee leaves the job or he or she is fired from job by company that is employer.

Today in digital age social networking era everyone needs to be aware about this?

USA in one case    employee left the job, after that company changed her linked in password, which made her unable to reach to her thousands of friends and contacts, after that she filed a case in Court but Judge rejected her case

Thus this creates very fundamental questions, in 21st Century who is owner of your social media friends and contacts, which you got or made while working on the job online and offline.

In past this question was not important but today and in future this question is going to become very important in great democratic nations like USA.

In another case
A federal California court allowed a publication named PhoneDog to proceed with a lawsuit against former writer Noah Kravitz, who had amassed 17,000 Twitter followers while working there.
Kravitz claimed the followers were his, but PhoneDog sued for ownership in 2011, and the judge denied a motion to dismiss the case

From above both cases one needs to understand importance of Facebook and twitter followers and friends and one should not mix personal and official contacts.

As an intelligent employee one should keep separate profile personal on all social sites so even if company employer keeps the social contacts you will be in touch with everyone because of personal profile on each social network like Facebook or Twitter or Linked In

If you fail to do and your company takes the ownership of followers and friends then it will become impossible for you to regain all those contacts.

Make sure the email used to set up the social networking account is a personal email that you control, not a corporate email address.

If you will use the corporate or company email then it becomes very easy for the company to claim the ownership of your social media accounts.

Always keep password change notification email address personal so any attempt to change password you will be notified on personal email account and you can easily claim your ownership.

Always use personal name, do not use company name associated with it

Like bill Clinton XYZ Company, this is wrong method

Bill Clinton is ok you can add age, or country name whatever

Avoid using company name and company logo to be on safe side

Reality views by sm –

Monday, October 22, 2012

Tags – Ownership Social Network Employer Employee Facebook Twitter Linked In