Who owns your online social networking contacts?

[mandy]

A recent judgement in the UK courts has forced a former employee of Hays to hand over details of the business contacts build up through LinkedIn.com whilst he was employed by them.

The decision is one of the first in the UK to show the tension between businesses encouraging their employees to use social networking websites whilst trying to claim that the contacts should remain confidential at the end of their employment.

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. The defence was that Hays encouraged employees to use the site, so once these contacts were in the public domain they were free for him to use. The court didn’t agree and the defendant was ordered to disclose all documents, including invoices and emails, that showed any use by of his LinkedIn contacts by him and any business obtained from them...

full article: http://www.bombaycrow.com/blog/index.php...-contacts/