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."
what email address did he register? (Score:4, Interesting)
Riight (Score:4, Interesting)
If you make contacts, you keep 'em unless it's something profoundly related to your company (e.g. the guy in shared services who'll push your capital requests).
Otherwise those are your contacts. You bet your ass the sales guys turn around and pitch your customers in their next gig. Why should it be any different for IT?
It will be interesting when its Stateside (Score:5, Interesting)
After RTFA, it appears as if the bloke in question set up his linkdin several weeks prior to him leaving. Of a more interesting nature, in my mind, is, at what point does an employer here in the States 'own' your contacts? Think about it. You've been on a site like the one mentioned in the article for lets say 5 years. You accept a position at a new company. Over the course of your 2 years being employed there, you add lets say 5 contacts. You then accept another position at another company, perhaps because you received a better job offer through this service. Can the comapny you are now leaving sue you in the US and obtain all of your contacts, even those prior to when you joined?
Another question is, are you now in the position of having to list out any and all personal and professional contacts you have on various internet sites as a part of your disclosure when filling out your paperwork for a new company? Sort of like having to list patents, websites and other works you might already have prior to working somehwere?
Time will tell I guess. this case seems pretty straightforward based on the limited article...but it sure will muddy up quick.
Re:Devil is in the details (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the more relevant bit from TFA is this:
However, the issue here appears to be the contacts themselves and how they were uploaded to the sites - i.e. straight from Mr Ionâ(TM)s work address book.
So remember kids - the lesson here is to build your network piece by piece and day by day, even if it's tedious.
Re:Who owns your contacts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just another example of social networking privacy issues. If your contact list was on your crackberry, you could give 'em the finger, secure in the knowledge that they'd never get hold of it.
But if it's right out there on LinkedIn...Well shit. What do you do? Especially if some of the contacts you've made are more buddy-buddy than pure contact...Or hell, what about all the contacts you make in school? I know dozens of people working for tech companies all over.
I know a manager in a corp that is competing directly with the corp I work for. We even BS industry specific crap back and forth; nothing truly private, but you know how the auditors get...But I knew this guy before either of us started working our current gigs. It would be easy to argue it as related or suggestive, but in reality it's just co-incidental.
If online, you don't own it. (Score:2, Interesting)
I am now convinced anything online - is not property; IP or not. It is simply "out there".
Laws and such will (mostly) favor those with powerful lawyers and the financial ability to control that "property".
I have recently begun to contribute to a short story site. I consider all of that material "gone" and even though we have a license on the work - I don't expect it to be ever enforceable.
And before you claim banking websites and owning that - information to funds over the Internet is simply a reflection of a "real world" property.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Of course they'll want them (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In Europe... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not in Europe, it's in the UK. Yes they are and no they're not, and this is exactly the sort of issue that puts the UK apart from, or at least very much to one side of, European policies.
The Euro and Iraq are two other easily noticed examples. If you actually find yourself thinking that what happens in the UK is exemplar of Europe, then you need to review what you know about the region.
What (Again?) The Law Applies to the Internet too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course a list of contacts developed while in someone's employ belongs to the company. That has been the law in just about every jurisdiction for decades. Just because that list is on the shiny new Intarweb doesn't change anything.
As with blog posts, comments, YouTube, and Facebook, the onus is on you to keep a clear line between work developed information and personal information, and to think these things through well in advance.
And to realize that trying to poach you employer's clients will almost always get you in trouble.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
To all you worker drones out there:
To all you bosses out there:
Could be some NDA/NCA issues there . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Contacting said contacts to give them what might be construed as negative information about your prior employer could indeed convince them to do business elsewhere, raising the spectre of competitive activity (even if you don't profit directly). If company xyz is able to take your former employer's contacts because you published their dirty laundry, you could end up liable even if xyz never compensates you for their good fortune. In a civil court, it would place you in the position of proving that xyz didn't compensate you for your actions, an incredibly difficult proposition (remember: in civil court, the standard is a preponderance of evidence, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt).
Re:Riight (Score:3, Interesting)
Those contacts were direct from his work contacts list, he was trying to pull a fast one and didn't get away with it.
pretty crazy (Score:4, Interesting)
It really all boils down to what you can get away with. As was mentioned previously, hair stylists will tend to take their customers with them when they go to a new salon. This is also common when talking about stock brokers and investment advisers, "taking their book with them." Very competent car salesmen will also walk with their clients. I would have no compunction switching vendors when a salesman changes jobs if the business is such that I know he has a very strong influence in the quality of service I receive.
At the same time, business owners tend to think of these customers as "theirs" and use any number of anti-competitive ruses to crush their employees. I worked at a midrange shop where the boss hosed one of his sales reps on a deal: he gave the guy a figure to offer for a deal and the rep had no latitude to change the offer, it being the boss' money and all. When the customer hemmed and hawed over it, the boss called them back and offered a better price, then put the sale on his board, not the other rep's! The rep walked, naturally, and a better case of killing a goose that laid golden eggs could not be found. The guy tried taking his book with him and the boss pulled out the non-compete signed many moons ago. They wasted a lot of money in court and the judge eventually decided against him.
A very common and legal scam in service-related industries is the lawn service con. When someone buys a lawn service, they're not buying the equipment so much as the customer base. The equipment costs are negligible compared to the effort of gathering all those customers in the first place. Ah, but what does the wily lawnmower man do? After he sells his business, he contacts all of his customers and lets them know he's going to be doing business as a different name. Those customers, happy with his service, will switch companies and the new owner of the old company will find himself with no work. Anyone buying a service business like this must must must stipulate a non-compete in the contract.
There's no right or wrong in this kind of dispute, there's only what you can get away with and what you can be nailed with in court.
So you just accept an uncontracted position? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you're going to get a job with another entity: person, corporation, not-for-profit, don't do it without your own protective clauses. Maybe I'm lucky that as a contractor, I can submit my expectations within the bid documents, but I don't see any reason why a W2 employee can't and shouldn't put their expectations into the work agreement.
If you do something on behalf of your customer (in this case, your employer), expect the customer to want rights to it. Designing a website, creating a marketing list, etc, may be easily acknowledged by others as "theirs" even if you spent the time doing it. They did pay you for that time, correct?
If you disagree with the verdict here, just put it into your work contract. I do.
Re:Devil is in the details (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking of registries (e.g. land registry) and maybe things like insurance policies.
We don't think about it much but legal systems like lists.
I think many humans like lists, too, and give extra credence to information presented in tabular forms. I see it as another example in our history of giving extra credence to information simply because it is written down (I'm sure it's a long history that goes back to the first writers).
slashdot article said only CA has such a law (Score:2, Interesting)
According to the article and numerous posts in http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/08/1335253/ [slashdot.org], California is the only U.S. State with a law prohibiting contractual obligations that prevent you from working in your field.
So what set of States were you referring to when you said "most States have laws that prohibit" that?
You have to be smart... (Score:3, Interesting)
Using systems owned by your "soon to be former" employer to set up your business is not very smart. It never hurts to cultivate relationships amongst your work related contacts, however do it on your own time. Manage your contacts at home on your own system as this eliminates any chance that something will be found on your old work system or in the e-mail logs. Figure out ways to strike up away for the office friendships with the contacts your are most interested. It takes time and forethought, but there are ways to "pilfer" a contact list without raising your employer's suspicions and if done right the boss will even encourage you.
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:3, Interesting)
Outside of zombie/vampire movies, how much repeat business do funeral planners really get? The customer is usually one-time, satisfied or not :-p
Re:what email address did he register? (Score:3, Interesting)
Back to subject - didn't they have his contact list already? Didn't they have their own system where he could could manage the contacts?
In this case yes, they had the contact list and all the details on the customers. Its just that the customers didn't want to talk to them. It was never them that the customers wanted to talk to; everyone asked for the personable old sales critter every time.
Thats probably why they wanted to get rid of him and why they ended up getting rid of most of their customers as well. The old guy was focussed on the customer and on making sure that the customer got something that satisfied them. The others focussed on the technologies and on selling the latest thing to the customer.
Its not about ownership of the list of names and addresses. If it came down to that then the Germans would have everything sewn up; they have an official "*Department* of Names and Addresses".
No, its about the people who have those names and who are at those addresses; its about the personal relationships with those people which establishes trust and confidence.
You don't own that on some "intellectual property" list.
Its not "Intellectual property", it never was; its "*Social* property" and not in the sense of "Socialist" either, don't get those mixed up. Perhaps "Sociable Property" might be clearer in meaning?