Between Lawyers

George Lenard On Facebooking Employment Candidates (Denise Howell)

2007-07-13T06:34:36-05:00

Here are George Lenard's posts on the subject:

Employers Using Facebook for Background Checking: Is It Legal?

More on using facebook et al. in recruiting and hiring (Part II)

Employers Using Facebook for Background Checking, Part III

This might be better suited to Overlawyered than Between Lawyers, but I'm posting it here anyway because it's a great series of posts. One thing I don't see addressed: one of the most powerful features of Facebook (and a host of other social networking sites) is the fine-grained privacy control users have over the visibility their data. Often, only "friends" have access to the kinds of details George discusses. But, lots of people do make their data more generally visible. It's ironic that employment laws are such that though "the public" may be invited to view such information, lucrative damages awards or settlements could be associated with doing so in the context of employment or potential employment.

Steve Nipper on Blog Comments (Dennis M. Kennedy)

2006-01-20T11:05:08-05:00

Steve Nipper's post called "Comment Policy for this Blog" both highlights a practical (and friendly) approach to some of the legal issues involved with comments on blogs and points out some useful resources about those issues. Of special note is the EFF's FAQ on Section 230 Protections for Bloggers, which is required reading for all bloggers who allow comments and highly recommended reading for people who leave comments on blogs.

A teaser from the FAQ:

Your readers' comments, entries written by guest bloggers, tips sent by email, and information provided to you through an RSS feed would all likely be considered information provided by another content provider. This would mean that you would not be held liable for defamatory statements contained in it. However . . . .

Noise Reduction Techniques (Denise Howell)

2005-10-30T10:57:24-05:00

Tom Peyer has a deliciously funny piece up at Slate, which you can also enjoy as a Slate podcast: Speaking to Me: Terms and Conditions. (From Slate's Low Concept department.)

Blog TOS (Denise Howell)

2005-04-07T12:10:12-05:00

Dennis wrote: "...as in the CC licenses, you can disclaim warranties, limit liability and cover other important matters. The second point is very important." I remember seeing recently that VentureBlog is doing this kind of thing via "terms of service." From a purely personal and nonlawyerly standpoint, terms of service strike me as a little off-putting and overbearing on a weblog as opposed to a Web site. But as a practical matter there's not much "as opposed to" about it, and I'll wager Venture blog isn't/won't be the only one to go this route, so I guess I'd better start thinking more sympathetically about the idea.

Like Weebles With Briefcases (Denise Howell)

2005-03-29T17:52:18-05:00

VentureBlog's David Hornik received the recent Howard Rice alert on corporate blogging as well, and drily observes, "When the stakes are high, the lawyers come rolling in from all directions." He also discusses drafting VentureBlog's terms of use.