Your Company May Not Own its Social Media Accounts

As employees promote themselves as well as their companies on social networking platforms, some questions inevitably arise. If an employee and the employer share in creating content, making connections, and bringing in customers through such social media sites, who owns the social media account, not to mention its content or the benefits that it generates? And what, for that matter, is a Facebook fan or a Twitter follower worth?

The answers are far from clear, and litigation over these issues continues to dot the legal landscape. The author discusses a number of these cases. In one of them a company named PhoneDog claims damages based upon a supposed Twitter follower “market value” of $2.50 each, per month.

In another case a company’s former president filed suit when the company continued to use a Linkedin site she had used to promote herself as well as the company. She alleged, among other things, invasion of privacy and violations of the Lanham Act, claiming that she lost potential business contacts because those searching for her on LinkedIn would have been confused and unable to send a message to her.

The federal court dismissed all of her federal claims, but it allowed state common law claims to proceed to trial.

The author suggests addressing ownership and access issues in any applicable employment agreement, including by way of a stipulation that the ex-employee must promptly return all social media login and password credentials upon termination.