Who Owns Your Online Networking Contacts?

Ben Morris writes "A recent judgement in the UK courts has forced a former employee to hand over details of his business contacts built up through LinkedIn.com while he was employed by his former company. The decision is one of the first in the UK to show the tension between businesses encouraging their employees to use social networking websites, and trying to claim that the contacts should remain confidential when they leave."

Comments

This happened to the guy I replaced

[lantastik]

Apparently some other members of the company had been contacted by recruiters and they started going through email and found some emails in violation of the non-compete clause. They then solidified their case through the former employee's LinkedIn contacts. The guy ended up settling out of court and they drilled him financially.

After finding that out, I went through my LinkedIn contacts and removed ALL the recruiters on there I didn't know on a personal level. I then contacted the recruiters remaining on my list and asked them to contact me before sending any InMail to any of my LinkedIn contacts.

Who owns your contacts?

[Opportunist]

Is a tricky question.

The real question is, though, how does it impact on your and your former employer's life? A contact isn't some sort of IP. There's a person or a company on the other end of the address, phone number or mail address. How will they react to a company that browbeats you into handing over your, partly private, address book?

If anything I'd send a mail to my contacts and tell them in no uncertain terms what my former employer did. Would you want to do business with a company where you have to watch constantly for backstabbing? I don't know if I'd really enjoy that.

Re:Who owns your contacts?

[davidsyes]

I don't have a LinkedIn account, but does it allow users to flag/tag they contacts as to:

- persona
- business
- source
- in a field related to my current employers' core line of business
- mildly risky
- ???

And, what of an employee who has all sorts of non-professional/unprofessional, naughty contacts, say, polluting the list just to waste the time of anyone being an asshole enough to demand the list?

May as well populate the list with names of thousands of deceased. Start name-scraping off headstones in Colma, CA, where the dead outnumber the living something like 10,000 to 1. Actually, the annoyed employees using LinkedIn might want to start combing the obituaries, massage adverts, business license/permit notifications and so on. Then, if the list is subpoenaed, just ignore any demand for living contacts and turn off the character flag and voila!

Re:Who owns your contacts?

[FnH]

The intent the information was shared with plays a role here I imagine. If the intent for the contact was to keep in touch with the company, then the information can be transferred. If the intent was to keep in touch at a more personal level, then it can't. Chances are that at least some of the contacts were personal, and that this ruling should have been more nuanced.

Re:Devil is in the details

[InlawBiker]

Indeed, a company's customer list is the property of - surprise - the company. Using LinkedIn as a loophole to aggregate the contacts doesn't make it right.

Re:what email address did he register?

[grahammm]

It depends on your business; if you're in banking or finance there can be rules about contacting your former clients for a period of time after you switch jobs.

Whereas in other industries, such as the beauty business, it is normal for clients to follow you when you change jobs.

Re:Devil is in the details

[ardle]

some might say that a list defines ownership.

I wouldn't have a problem with that...

[mmell]

of course, they'll have to wade through several dozen pron^H^H^H^Hart websites, as well as half a dozen casino^H^H^H^H^H^Hpractical mathematics websites - not to mention /., UF, YouTube . . . oh, never mind - they can just get it all from the network guys. What, you didn't keep a record of my network activity while I worked for you? Boy, it just sucks to be you today, don't it? I sure don't remember all the people I've had contact with lately, I was counting on you guys to keep track of that for me.

Re:Devil is in the details

[MrMarket]

some people might say that a "list" is not the "property" of anyone.

These people never spent years and money building and updating their customer lists.

Re:what email address did he register?

[compro01]

Not just trust, but also a "knows what I need/want" thing. It generally happens with any sort of personalized service. Bankers, brokers, investment consultants (a lot of times those three hats are worn by one person), doctors, lawyers, funeral planners, etc. All of them rely heavily on repeat clients and word-of-mouth advertising, which in turn rely heavily on providing just-what-I-needed service.

Re:Devil is in the details

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what about the contacts that had nothing to do with his work there? That company has no right to those.

Just send a copy.

[SeaFox]

How exactly does one "hand over" an electronic record that can be freely copied?

What are they going to do, tell all his contacts to no longer talk to him if he calls?

Re:what email address did he register?

[compro01]

Not sure if you're completely joking or not, but the customers are not the deceased, but the family of the deceased, which typically do bring opportunities for repeat business, as everyone, including vampires and zombies, dies eventually, and if they were satisfied with the services the first time, it's likely they'll return.

Re:what email address did he register?

[compro01]

Your signature and comment match quite well.