The internet has provided a relatively cheap and efficient way to disseminate information throughout the world. Today, medium size companies and your smallest mom and pop company can boast of a website. Thanks to free sites like Worldpress, Google blogger, Facebook etc, ‘star’ employees are creating Facebook pages, blogs and twitter accounts to promote themselves and their companies. Anchors at Radio and Television stations all have blogs and Facebook pages. Some government officials have Facebook and other social network accounts with 1000s of ‘friends’ through which they send government information and raise funds.
The important question is who owns these sites. What happens when the employee/employer relationship ends? The employee will definitely agree to remove any reference to his former employer from the site. But the question still remains, who keeps these sites with all the 1000s of followers. The law is currently silent on this issue. However, in the event of a litigation to determine ownership, these are some of the questions that may arise; was there any prior written agreement? When was the page created? What is the nature of the content? Is the page updated substantially during work time? etc. These issues can be very contentious because the large list of contacts/followers may be crucial for an employee to launch a new career. The employer who loses these 1000s of contacts/followers may lose a substantial audience or clientele. The company may have to spend valuable resources and time to build another network of audience/clientele/followers.
To avoid a potential costly law suit, the parties may take a proactive step by establishing a written agreement at the front end to determine the ownership of social networking sites when the employer-employee relationship ends.
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