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Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has taken a lot of heat recently for changing Facebook’s privacy settings. Today, he was grilled at the D8 conference held outside Los Angeles by Wall Street Journal tech writer Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

As an attorney I would be very happy to have Mark as a client.  Not only because Facebook would be a billing bonanza, but he would make a great deposition witness. He is extremely careful with his answers and has a great ability to dance around questions.

One of the big issues of the day is why Facebook recently changed its privacy settings so that information posted on the service is public unless you decide otherwise.  If you were expecting a straight answer from the CEO of Facebook as to why, you were sh_t out of luck. As Mashable notes, there was no straight answer from Zuckerberg about why Facebook Instant Personalization was opt-out instead of opt-in.

On the other hand, if you are interested in obtaining information regarding your user information from Facebook, good luck.  They claim that user information is private.  Here is an email I received from Facebook when I sent a fax requesting the user information of my client whose  account was hacked:

Thank you for your email. We will investigate this report and take the appropriate
action based on our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. However, for privacy
and security reasons, we cannot provide any additional information about the account
at this time. Please have the account owner view the Privacy and Security pages of
Facebook's Help Center:

- Information on Hacked Accounts: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=420

From here, they can take the appropriate steps to receive additional support. Please
also let the account owner know that they will need to contact us from either the
login email address associated with their account or a secondary email address they
own.

We apologize for any inconvenience this security policy may cause.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Guy
User Operations
Facebook

Watch the video of Mark Zuckerberg speaking about privacy:

Related posts:

1. Facebook’s Law Department is Ready to Brawl over Requests for Information from a User’s Facebook Account
2. Privacy Policy
3. Subpoena information for Facebook & Myspace
4. Litigation, Privacy and other Legal Issues in Cloud Computing
5. Should Bosses Be Worried About Accepting Facebook “Friend” Requests?

Social Media is quickly transforming how people are communicating with each other.  It should come as no surprise that employees are now looking to connect with their bosses on Facebook.

The New York Law Journal (under a pay wall) reports today that the innocuous friend request is really a Trojan horse which contains the hidden danger of litigation.  Should bosses accept Facebook ”Friend” requests from an employee? I think they should, with certain caveats.

The article cites Michael Schmidt, Esq. of Cozan O’Conner, who argues

“a manager is bound to learn things about an employee that they don’t already know… when the manager learns of some personal attribute through the site, the worker now has the opportunity to argue that any later adverse employment decision was based on this personal information.”

Here are some other potential issues:

• The employer views the profile of an employee and notices that the employee has different religious or political view. This may influence the employer or manager when it comes to time to make a promotion.
• If an employee makes defamatory remarks against an employee or the company, the employer would then have the duty to investigate the incident.

Shanti Atkins, an attorney and President of ELT. Inc thinks that employers should simply ban employees from accepting “friend requests.”

I think that Ms. Atkins approach is naive and could be business suicide.  Chris Brogan, speaking in New York last week at the Trust Summit, argued that companies need to listen, collaborate and learn to survive.  Companies cannot collaborate with their employees without engaging with them in social media.  Moreover, if an employee or employee is doing something improper, such as writing something racist, wouldn’t it be wise to investigate it immediately rather than ignore it?

I agree that there is a risk for potential litigation as people are moving to communicating in written form that is public.  There is a paper trail that can be used against anyone for a number of reasons, including litigation.

What companies need to do is have a social media policy drafted that spells out the specifics of what everyone can do when they engage on social networking sites.  This new area of transparency creates legal issues. How your company deals with transparency may be the deciding factor of whether it can compete in this new world.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Facebook’s Law Department is Ready to Brawl over Requests for Information from a User’s Facebook Account
2. Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy
3. Why your Social Networking Policy Should Address Collaboration
4. Legal Problems of Social Networks
5. Social Networks, Employees and Anti-Discrimination Laws.

Twitter has only been around for a few years.  As a business owner, you are probably wondering how to use the service to grow your local business. Here are a few ideas:

1.  Follow as many people in your target market as possible.  If you are searching for Internet marketers, twitter is a gold mind. However, if you are looking for business owners in the construction industry, your task will be more difficult.  I would suggest using  Twellow, a twitter yellow pages which categorizes tweeters by industry and location.  Another option is using  Google advanced search.

2.  Create a Twitter tribe.  Seth Godin has been spending the last year pushing his idea of the importance of Tribes. If you can create  a Tribe of 1000 local Twitters who eagerly anticipate your every Tweet, I guarantee that you will obtain new customers.

3.  Follow mavens on Twitter. If you don’t know what a maven is, read the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  On that note, read anything that Malcolm Gladwell publishes.

4.  Never eat lunch alone.  Invite one Twitter follower a day to lunch.

5.  Invite your favorite Twitter followers to join you on other social networks, such as Facebook and Linkedin.

6. Tweet information in your field that demonstrates that you are a leader in your industry.  If you own a restaurant, link to articles about Thomas Keller.

7. Create amazing content on your blog. Use Twitter to drive traffic to disseminate your produce and your ideas.

8.  Create a Tweetup.  It is simply not enough to sit around the computer or iPhone all day and tweet. You need to actually meet your followers in the flesh.

9.  If you live in New York, go to a Mashable event.  People who tweet love Mashable.

10.  Invite your Twitter followers to work from your office.

11.  Provide exclusive offers to your followers on Twitter.  Follow Dell.

12.  Be real.

13.  Don’t push your products all day.

14.  Be curious and engage your followers.

15.  Be funny.  Considering the space constraints, this is extremely difficult.

16.  Be memorable.

17.  Have fun!

Please be advised that I am a New York business law attorney and I am not one of those self-proclaimed Twitter gurus.  Feel free to share your riffs on how to use Twitter to build your local business in the comment section of this blog. I would love to hear from you.  If you are in the New York area, lets have lunch!

Related posts:

1. What is Trending on Twitter for Lawyers (and anyone else)
2. The Latest Twitter Tips for Lawyers (and anyone else)
3. What are you doing to build your Community?
4. Review of Chris Brogan’s Trust Summit: Be a Priest and Build a Church
5. Legal Problems of Social Networks

You are probably using social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked in for a variety of purposes, from updating your status, to networking with college friends that leads to new business.  Although the law on social networks is evolving, there are several issues that you need to be aware of to protect yourself legally.  Listed below are 5 issues that you need to be aware of regarding the legal problems of social networks.

1.    Privacy:

Some information that you provide on social networks are available to the general public, such as the name of your employer and photographs. As a result, any claim of a right to privacy to any material posted on social networking sites may be lost.

2.    Identity Theft:

Social networks contain a treasure trove of personal information.  For instance, my Blackberry was recently stolen and the thieves were able to hack into my Facebook account. The information gleaned from the site, such as date of birth, mother’s name and hometown could have been used by a thief to steal my identity.

3.    Potential use in litigation:

Such personal information can be obtained by legal adversaries and may be exploited if you are ever involved in a lawsuit. Before posting, think about how any information can be used against you

4.    Defamation:

Social Networking sites do not provide immunity from defamation laws. Expressing your views about Britney Spears may be fine, but watch out for any defamatory comments that you make regarding anyone else.

5.    Intellectual Property:

There are no special laws shielding users of social networks from trademark and copyright laws.

Related posts:

1. Legal Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Social Networking Policy
2. Social Networks, Employees and Anti-Discrimination Laws.
3. Facebook’s Law Department is Ready to Brawl over Requests for Information from a User’s Facebook Account
4. Why your Social Networking Policy Should Address Collaboration
5. Litigation, Privacy and other Legal Issues in Cloud Computing