A recent case from the Northern District of California demonstrates the increasing importance for businesses using social media to establish clear policies notifying employees that social media accounts used in connection with their employment are company, not employee, property.
BACKGROUND
The case, PhoneDog LLC v. Kravitz, concerned a dispute between PhoneDog, which operates a website dedicated to mobile phone news and reviews, and one of its former
employees. In order to increase traffic to the website, PhoneDog requested that its employees maintain Twitter accounts to promote new content on the site. Noah Kravitz, a
PhoneDog employee who served as one of PhoneDog’s product reviewers and video bloggers, used a Twitter account, “@PhoneDog_Noah,” to publicize content published on the site. More…