legal issues blogging - corporate information policy making inthe light of social software
Many people publish as if they were untouchable, assuming that because what they write appears in a virtual world, it won't come back to burn them in the "real" world. Many overlook the fact that their rants can potentially reach millions of people when posted on the Internet.
The same law that relates to publishing in the offline world, generally speaking, applies to material posted publicly on a Web log, legal and human resources experts said. Posting information or opinions on the Internet is not much different from publishing in a newspaper, and if the information is defamatory, compromises trade secrets, or violates copyright or trademark regulations, the publisher could face legal claims and monetary damages.
Authors generally are obligated to publish as facts only what they believe to be true. But stating opinions can be tricky, especially when those views relate to workplace issues, said Bret Fausett, a Los Angeles-based lawyer.
Fausett keeps a Web log that chronicles the goings-on at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization in charge of managing the system of Internet addresses. It's one thing for people to use their personal Web sites to write reviews of, say, the hit TV show "The Sopranos," he said. "As long as you don't work for HBO, that's great."
But "it's another thing to say, 'Our server crashed today, and the idiot IT person at our company couldn't get the thing running.' "
Evan Williams, co-founder of Pyra Labs, the San Francisco company behind the Blogger.com publishing software, said the people at Pyra do not monitor content, though they do investigate complaints.
"If something is clearly illegal, we will remove it. But that's pretty rare," Williams wrote in response to an e-mail query.
More common, Williams said, is that an "employee/blogger will contact us (in a panic) when he or she has gotten in trouble for blogging and needs to know how to take something down before they get sued."
Experts on Web publishing warned that anyone digging for details about a person or company via Google or other search engines can unearth reams of archived Web log material.
The most flippant of remarks published two years ago could broadcast something a company doesn't want competitors or potential clients to know.
Even with supposedly anonymous Web logs, clues can tip off readers to people's identities, whether it's jargon the writers use, references to conversations between cubicle-mates or stories about personal experiences.
"The Internet creates a veil of separation between you and other people," said Gregory Alan Rutchik, managing partner at the Arts and Technology Group, a San Francisco firm specializing in copyright and publishing law. "Don't be misled by the fact that you're sitting in a room, behind a locked door, at your computer. There's ways to find out who you are."
For instance, those aggrieved by a posting have occasionally gone to court to force Internet service providers to identify customers or cut off access to offending sites.
One woman, a Web designer who asked that her name not be used, said she lost her job because of what she wrote on her Web log.
She was summoned to her supervisor's office to discuss the narratives -- often derogatory -- that she'd written about her company and co-workers. Although it doesn't say so on her Web site, the blog is mostly fiction, consisting of veiled references and often composites of people, she said.
After the meeting, she thought she'd succeeded in escaping with merely a slap on the wrist. "We talked about it and resolved things, and I was never going to talk about work on my Web site again," she said. "I was under the impression everything was okay."
Two days later, she was fired. "I was shocked that they would take it seriously," she said, "and that little old me with this little old Web site would cause such a stir."
Pam Farr, president of Cabot Advisory Group LLC, a human resources consulting firm in New Jersey, said such a scenario is not unusual. "Many a career has been ruined by blasting off an angry diatribe whether in person or in cyberspace," she said.
Many large companies have a policy that says only authorized workers, such as those in the public relations department, are allowed to reveal certain types of information, Farr said. Employees may assert that they have a right to express their opinions. But even then, she said, there needs to be a statement clearly marked on the Web site saying "this in no way represents a position of my company."
"With the advent of cyberspace, we've had to evolve these policies," Farr said. "Somewhere between First Amendment rights and total repression there is a practical middle ground."
She advises companies to craft an "information policy" that defines what is considered proprietary information, describes where that information resides and details who owns it.
