Who Owns Your Online Networking Contacts? 130
Ben Morris writes "A recent judgement in the UK courts has forced a former employee to hand over details of his business contacts built up through LinkedIn.com while he was employed by his former company. The decision is one of the first in the UK to show the tension between businesses encouraging their employees to use social networking websites, and trying to claim that the contacts should remain confidential when they leave."
Devil is in the details (Score:3, Informative)
Hays alleged that the employee used his LinkedIn network to approach clients for his own rival agency, which he set up a few weeks before leaving them.
Re:Devil is in the details (Score:3, Informative)
some people might say that a "list" is not the "property" of anyone.
Re:Devil is in the details (Score:5, Informative)
some people might say that a "list" is not the "property" of anyone.
Those people would be wrong. Depending on your jurisdiction databases (lists) may be covered by copyright or database rights[1].
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right [wikipedia.org]
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:4, Informative)
Sadly, the same goes for banking...People get attached to their banker, and since it's such a trust position, they'll follow that guy if he switches, rather than try to "break in" someone new.
Re:Who owns your contacts? (Score:1, Informative)
Customer lists can be IP in the form of trade secrets. If the list has economic value and the company takes reasonable measures to protect it, it is likely a trade secret. See http://iplaw.blogs.com/content/2006/06/in_a_may_31_200.html [blogs.com].
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:4, Informative)
Most States have laws that prohibit contractual obligations that prevent you from working in your field. I mean, you can't very well tell a medical device sales rep that he is forbidden from approaching physicians for 1 year.
Plus, anyone in sales knows damn well (or ought to know) to keep their own contact list, and not rely exclusively on the company contact database.
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:1, Informative)
However, I would also expect that whether or not there's confidentiality involved would depend upon if there was an NDA in force when he was hired.
Aren't Linkedin contacts publicly visible by all?
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:4, Informative)
You are correct only insofar as the employee is concerned. Both British and EU law protects all personally identifying information on behalf of the person identified, NOT the holder of that information, which means that the employee has no legal right to forward that information to anyone, even if that information is obtained in the course of his work duties. The information doesn't belong to him, it belongs to the people it is about.
(That is what makes the EU - in principle - far superior to other regions when it comes to privacy. You own all data about you, no matter who has it. You do not rescind ownership, simply by handing it to someone. They are merely licensed to hold that information. You are entitled to demand that they reveal what information they have, and are entitled to demand mistakes are corrected or that the information is destroyed.)
If the employee has no legal ownership of the information, the court cannot order him to forward it. Courts can't order people to commit offenses! That would be absurd. And since he is merely the licensee of that information, not its owner, the court had no business regarding him as a concerned party.
I want to see privacy laws increased in Europe - there isn't nearly enough, which is why Britain has so many CCTV systems, mostly used for the purpose of selling footage to the media - they are barely ever used in criminal cases and aren't even that usable when they are. Further, only computer-stored data is protected, which is stupid - privacy breeches are about the privacy not the method.
Re:Who owns your contacts? (Score:2, Informative)
"A contact isn't some sort of IP."
Under accounting rules in the US, a customer list is a type of "identifiable intangible asset."
Re:It will be interesting when its Stateside (Score:2, Informative)
>the catch is they are COMPENSATED for that bit.
It isn't really a "catch", it's a simple fact that a contract is only valid if something of value is exchanged for valuable consideration.