Most claims against private employers for invasion of privacy are dismissed because employees have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in most areas of the workplace.  A restaurant in New Jersey recently discovered a novel way to violate an employee’s rights by violating a federal statute.

A manager at a Houston’s restaurant pressured an employee to give him her password to Spec-Tator, a website on MySpace that is supposed to be private and accessible only to invited members.  Using the password, the manager discovered some unflattering behavior of another employee and proceeded to fire her.  The fired employee sued for invasion of privacy and violation of the Stored Communications Act, the federal statute that normally governs wiretapping.

A jury found the restaurant liable, finding that the manager accessed the website without authorization several different times.  As a result, it awarded both compensatory and punitive damages against the employer.

Many employers use social networking sites to gather information about job applicants, and that is generally ok as long as they follow certain guidelines to ensure that they don’t discriminate for off-duty conduct like smoking or drinking, the applicant’s political beliefs, or on the basis of protected characteristic like religion or disability.  What is not ok is accessing information that you know you are not supposed to access. 

Hat tip: http://www.workplaceprivacyreport.com/2009/10/articles/workplace-privacy/social-network-monitors-beware/

Great article in Sunday’s NYT Magazine by Peggy Orenstein about the lures of the internet.  Comparing herself to Ulysses lashing himself to his ship’s mast to avoid succumbing to the Siren’s song, she looks for ways to free herself from the internet.   Her thesis: knowledge and information are two different things.

“The trap is more of a bait and switch: the promise [of the internet] is of infinite knowledge, but what’s delivered is infinite information, and the two are hardly the same. In that sense, Homer may have been the original neuropsychologist: centuries after his death, brain studies show that true learning is largely an unconscious process. If we’re inundated with data, our brains’ synthesizing functions are overwhelmed by the effort to keep up. And the original purpose — deeper knowledge of a subject — is lost.”

I remember reading that some companies have been experimenting with “email-free Fridays” in an effort to improve productivity.  That seems like a wonderful idea to me.

According to a survey from Robert Half Technology, 54 percent of chief information officers interviewed recently said their firms do not allow employees to visit social networking sites for any reason while at work.   The survey included more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States with 100 or more employees.

CIOs were asked, “Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?” Their responses:

Prohibited completely                                      54 percent
Permitted for business purposes only        19 percent
Permitted for limited personal use               16 percent
Permitted for any type of personal use       10 percent

So the debate continues: are social networking sites a time-wasting diversion from real business priorities, or effective business tools.  Discuss among yourselves and post a comment.

Hat Tip: LaVern Pritchard

So says the Wall Street Journal.    Its reign as the king of communications is over.  In its place, services like Twitter and Facebook are profoundly rewriting the way we communicate. 

“Email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.”

I can’t imagine that FB or Twitter will ever replace email for business purposes.  But of course, someone like me probably said that about snail mail 20 years ago.