Who Owns Your Online Networking Contacts?

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?

If he registered his work e-mail and promoted that as his main contact, then yes, he was using Linkedin in the course of performing his job and his employer is entitled to those contacts. 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.

Re:what email address did he register?

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:what email address did he register?

It depends on your business; if you're in banking or finance there can be rules about contacting your former clients for a period of time after you switch jobs.

Whereas in other industries, such as the beauty business, it is normal for clients to follow you when you change jobs.

Re:what email address did he register?

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:what email address did he register?

I've seen them try and do the same thing to sales people, but it doesn't seem to work as well (in my experience).

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.

Riight

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?

This happened to the guy I replaced

Apparently some other members of the company had been contacted by recruiters and they started going through email and found some emails in violation of the non-compete clause. They then solidified their case through the former employee's LinkedIn contacts. The guy ended up settling out of court and they drilled him financially.

After finding that out, I went through my LinkedIn contacts and removed ALL the recruiters on there I didn't know on a personal level. I then contacted the recruiters remaining on my list and asked them to contact me before sending any InMail to any of my LinkedIn contacts.

It will be interesting when its Stateside

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.

Who owns your contacts?

Is a tricky question.

The real question is, though, how does it impact on your and your former employer's life? A contact isn't some sort of IP. There's a person or a company on the other end of the address, phone number or mail address. How will they react to a company that browbeats you into handing over your, partly private, address book?

If anything I'd send a mail to my contacts and tell them in no uncertain terms what my former employer did. Would you want to do business with a company where you have to watch constantly for backstabbing? I don't know if I'd really enjoy that.

Re:Who owns your contacts?

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.

Re:Who owns your contacts?

The intent the information was shared with plays a role here I imagine. If the intent for the contact was to keep in touch with the company, then the information can be transferred. If the intent was to keep in touch at a more personal level, then it can't. Chances are that at least some of the contacts were personal, and that this ruling should have been more nuanced.

In Europe...

...where they have decent employment and privacy laws this would never be allowed.

Oh. Wait...

Of course they'll want them

Contacts can sometimes be worth an incredible amount of money. This is absolutely true when you're talking about a business that relies on doing contract work.

Good luck with that

To all you worker drones out there:

• Always read what you sign.
• Respect it to the letter
• Whether you respect it beyond the letter, is up to you

To all you bosses out there:

• You can maybe force me to turn over an address book
• But you cannot force me to turn over years of personal relationships I've carefully built
• So treat me good while you have me
• Or you'll miss me when I'm gone

pretty crazy

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.

Re:Devil is in the details

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:Devil is in the details

Indeed, a company's customer list is the property of - surprise - the company. Using LinkedIn as a loophole to aggregate the contacts doesn't make it right.

Re:Devil is in the details

some might say that a list defines ownership.

Re:Devil is in the details

some might say that a list defines ownership.

Huh?

So, here's my list:

1. Everything of yours.
2. The lint in my pocket.
3. All your base.
4. Profit!

Re:Devil is in the details

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:Devil is in the details

Depending on your jurisdiction databases (lists) may be covered by copyright or database rights[1].

Databases want to be free!

Re:Devil is in the details

some people might say that a "list" is not the "property" of anyone.

These people never spent years and money building and updating their customer lists.

Re:Devil is in the details

The curvature is about 0 deg, 0 min, 1 sec per 100 feet, which is flat enough for engineering purposes.

Re:Devil is in the details

Oh great...NASA just chimed in.

Re:Devil is in the details

After converting to meters, NASA has confirmed the earth is a torus.