Company Sues Ex-Employee Because He Kept His Personal Twitter Account & Followers
from the tweet-tweet dept
Well, well, well. Look at this. Just about a year ago, we wrote a blog post questioning who "owned" a Twitter account when someone was an employee of a company and had built up a big "personal" Twitter following in that role... but then left the company. The example we used was CNN's Rick Sanchez. That one never hit a legal conflict, but it really was only a matter of time. Venkat Balasubramani alerts us to a case in which the company PhoneDog sued a former employee because he kept his Twitter account. A couple of important points right upfront. This was not "the" PhoneDog Twitter account. The company had its own specific Twitter account. The employee in question, Noah Kravitz, simply named his account "@PhoneDog_Noah", which has become a fairly standard naming pattern among employees of certain companies -- using both the company name and their own name as part of the handle. Also, once Kravitz left PhoneDog, he switched the account to @noahkravitz. PhoneDog still sued, claiming (1) misappropriation of trade secrets, (2) interference with economic advantage; and (3) conversion.The court ruled on Kravitz' motion to dismiss by rejecting the "interference with economic advantage" claim, but left the other claims to stand for the time being. I have trouble seeing how either the trade secret or the conversion claim stands up at all. What's the trade secret here? Hell, what's "secret" at all? The Twitter account is public. The follower list is public. The only thing not public is the password, and there is some argument over whether or not the password was "adequately safeguarded" as a trade secret. Even if it wasn't, though, is that really a "trade secret?" It's a password! But the court thought that was enough:
PhoneDog has sufficiently described the subject matter of the trade secret with sufficient particularity and has alleged that, despite its demand that Mr. Kravitz relinquish use of the password and Account, he has refused to do so. At this stage, these allegations are sufficient to state a claim. Further, to the extent that Mr. Kravitz has challenged whether the password and Account followers are trade secrets and whether Mr. Kravitz's conduct constitutes misappropriation requires consideration of evidence beyond the scope of the pleading.The whole thing seems pretty crazy. If you want him to Tweet as the company, give him the company account. If you want to him to Tweet as himself, let him do so. Suing for the account just seems silly and petty.
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Filed Under: noah kravitz, ownership, passwords, trade secrets, twitter accounts
Companies: phonedog, twitter
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That's all human beings are to corporations: chattel.
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Hard to tell these days..
"I don't need sex, the government screws me everyday"
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Plus, they have more rights than citizens anymore.
But this should be a lesson to current employees there - don't go the extra mile; you'll get sued for it.
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Who created the account?
If Kravitz created this account separately using his personal resources, then PhoneDog should have been able to shut it down via Twitter's policy when it still contained PhoneDog in its name. But since Kravitz changed it, I wonder if PhoneDog can still claim that the account is related to them now...
In any case, this sounds like PhoneDog didn't do what it should have done when Kravitz left the company. This sounds like a modern case of "leaving with a Rolodex full of contact info".....
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Re: Who created the account?
This is exactly why the "cloud" will never be something for sensitive data ever, there are things people don't mind losing control over it and there are others that just ain't worth it.
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If the password is a trade secret...
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If the password is the "trade secret" shouldn't PhoneDog know it?
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IMO, this is sorta a free speech issue. If the courts make it more difficult for him and his twitter followers to communicate, they are impeding on their free speech.
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If he gets another 17k followers as a result of this, how can a judge allow the claim to go forward?
Thats like taking the rolodex, adding more names than you stared with, and the judge forcing you to hand over ALL the names (while both of you have a copy of the entire list anyway).
Follow Noah campaign (they're trying to take my twitter account might even make the news!) should get this tossed.
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Phonedog? That's an actual company name?
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This is not a simple question.
First, what was the status and responsibilities of the ex-employee?
Was he/she a wage earner or Chief Operations Officer?
If he was a wage earner it is clear that he had no authority and as such the ex-employee may own the account.
Second, whose resources were used to create the content?
If the ex-employee use company resources then there is a high probability that the account belongs to the company.
Third, where was the work on the account done? Did the ex-employee maintain it at work? If so there is a high probability the company owns the account.
Fourth, (and this is the weakest question) what is the content of the account?
If the account was opened, maintained, and developed by a corporate official or sales professional for the promotion of the company using resources of the company on company time then the account is definitely a company account.
If the account's content did not feature the company in any way, did not use resources of the company, and was developed and maintained at home then the account is the employees.
If you have a mixed bag of answers to the two preceding conditional statements then there is a ligament different point of view of ownership.
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Phonedog
is silly, etc.
But let's suppose (and I don't know this is true, but I have seen similar cases) that the company had built up a customer list at considerable cost and effort. Assume further the list is "primo", as well as expensive.
Some guy wants that list (difference between "me-too" and "star salesman" - actual case, here), so he gets hired, gets access to the list KNOWING how valuable it is, then quits, ready to make his fortune.
Different case, right? I saw essentially this happen - the company didn't sue, but at considerable expense they did get the word out to the list what kind of person he was - after that, he found another occupation.
In the same case, he might have preferred to lose a suit.
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Re: Phonedog
and besides, being a disloyal employee maybe profitable in the short run, but in the long run, word gets out and getting a job becomes more difficult. Companies will pay the employee generously for the information sought, but they will be reluctant to later hire an employee knowing, based on this employee's work history, that this employee might be very willing to sell their 'trade secrets' away as well.
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It's the followers that the company wants.
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Re: It's the followers that the company wants.
That word, "forced"... I don't think it means what you think it means.
I wonder if the company asked him to tweet a link to the official company account and encourage his followers to follow it. Any more than that is pointless IMO. If people are interested in following the company, they will. If they're interested in following the person and not the company, they won't no matter what the outcome of the lawsuit.
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Re: Re: It's the followers that the company wants.
No, because judges can legislate public opinion just as easily as they can legislate law. If a judge says that you should follow a corporation and not an individual and like it and that it should be your opinion to favor the corporation over the individual then so be it.
Corporations are so short sighted. Like others have said, this individual ought to notify his followers of the suit and the fact that he will no longer control the account (and will move the a new account) so that the followers can simply ditch the corporation and follow the individual. Lets see a judge force customers to stay with a corporation against their will. That's a bunch of nonsense if I've ever seen it.
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What does PhoneDog hope to gain from this?
It sounds like Kravitz left the company on bad terms and Phonedog is just being spiteful.
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Re: What does PhoneDog hope to gain from this?
Though what's more likely is that the corporation simply wants to retrieve all of the contact information, shut the account down, create a new account (or use another existing account of their own), and attempt to establish all the same followers.
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Just give them the password that was used during the employment (but change it first)
And what about the Terms and Conditions of Twitter? Did he sign up under his company's credentials, or private ones?
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