Tweeting at the office: Have you checked your contract?

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 post by analyst Jeremiah Owyang outlines the issues. The part that really made us pay attention was a comment that Owyang cited from Attorney Lisa Borodkin relating to the role email already plays in trials and lawsuits:

"By now I hope everyone realizes that thousands of lawyers every day are fully employed in reviewing millions of company emails that have been subpoenaed in lawsuits all over the world. As long as a company reminds everyone that they have no right of privacy in anything that goes through the company's computer systems, and that this extends beyond email to social networks, then employers and employees can undertake these activities mutually aware of the risks and rewards. The hope is that both will find shared value in mixing social media with work and allocate the potential economic rewards in an equitable manner."

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.

Sources and research: www.web-strategist.com, lisaborodkin.com, www.callahan-law.com

Ian's bio and disclosures are located here. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Industry Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters. You can also join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.

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