Tweeting at the office: Have you checked your contract?

29.10.2009
Hey you -- the developer sitting in that suburban cube farm, happily twittering away about going to lunch, the bug report you're filing, and that startup idea that's been bouncing around your head lately. We hate to break it to you, but the work contract that you signed gives your company ownership of those tweets ... not to mention any Facebook posts, LinkedIn profile updates, and YouTube videos that you may have worked on or uploaded from a work machine or over your company's network.

Don't believe us, or think that those clauses are like EULAs and website terms of service that no one pays attention to? Well, we'd like to think so too, but this outlines the issues. The part that really made us pay attention was a comment that Owyang cited from relating to the role email already plays in trials and lawsuits:

Click through to Owyang's post to see a list of recommendations for employees and employers. Some of them may be hard to follow through, but in light of the increasingly large role of social media and user-generated content networks and the continuing blurring of work and personal time, they are well worth considering.

: www.web-strategist.com, lisaborodkin.com,

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