shutterstock_276783140We are pleased to announce the webinar “Social Media Privacy Legislation Update” is now available as a podcast and webinar recording.

In Seyfarth’s eighth installment in its series of Trade Secrets Webinars, Seyfarth social media attorneys discussed their recently released Social Media Privacy Legislation Desktop Reference and addressed the relationship between trade secrets, social media, and privacy legislation.

As a conclusion to this well-received webinar, we compiled a list of  brief summaries of the more significant cases that were discussed during the  webinar:

  • In KNF&T Staffing Inc. v. Muller, Case No. 13-3676 (Mass. Super. Oct. 24, 2013) a Massachusetts court held that updating a LinkedIn account to identify one’s new employer and listing generic skills does not constitute solicitation. The court did not address whether a LinkedIn post could ever violate a restrictive covenant.
  • Outside of the employment context, the Indiana Court of Appeals in Enhanced Network Solutions Group Inc. v. Hypersonic Technologies Corp., 951 N.E.2d 265 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011) held that a nonsolicitation agreement between a company and its vendor was not violated when the vendor posted a job on LinkedIn and an employee of the company applied and was hired for the position, because the employee initiated all major steps that led to the employment.
  • In the context of Facebook, a Massachusetts court ruled in Invidia LLC v. DiFonzo, 2012 WL 5576406 (Mass. Super. Oct. 22, 2012) that a hairstylist did not violate her nonsolicitation provision by “friending” her former employer’s customers on Facebook because “one can be Facebook friends with others without soliciting those friends to change hair salons, and [plaintiff] has presented no evidence of any communications, through Facebook or otherwise, in which [defendant] has suggested to these Facebook friends that they should take their business to her chair.”
  • Similarly, in Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. v. Cahill, Case No. CIV-12-346-JHP, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19323 (E.D. Okla., Jan. 22, 2013) a former employee posted information about his new employer on his Facebook page “touting both the benefits of [its] products and his professional satisfaction with [it]” and sent general requests to his former co-employees to join Twitter. A federal court in Oklahoma denied his former employer’s request for a preliminary injunction, holding that communications were neither solicitations nor impermissible conduct under the terms of his restrictive covenants
  • The Virginia Supreme Court in Allied Concrete Co. v. Lester, 285 Va. 295 (2013) upheld a decision sanctioning a plaintiff and his attorney a combined $722,000 for deleting a Facebook account and associated photographs that undermined the plaintiff’s claim for damages stemming from the wrongful death of his wife in an car accident. The deleted photographs showed plaintiff holding a beer while wearing a T-shirt with the message, “I Love hot moms.” Subsequent testimony revealed that the plaintiff’s attorney had instructed his paralegal to tell the plaintiff to “clean up” his Facebook entries because “we do not want blowups of this stuff at trial.”
  • PhoneDog v. Noah Kravitz, No. C11-03474 MEJ, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129229 (N.D. Cal., 2012) involved a dispute over whether a Twitter account’s followers constitute trade secrets even when they are publically visible. The court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss and ruled that PhoneDog, an interactive mobile news and reviews web resource, could proceed with its lawsuit against Noah Kravitz, a former employee, who PhoneDog claimed unlawfully continued using the company’s Twitter account after he quit.  The court held that PhoneDog had described the subject matter of the trade secret with “sufficient particularity” and satisfied its pleading burden as to Kravitz’s alleged misappropriation by alleging that it had demanded that Kravitz relinquish use of the password and Twitter account, but that he has refused to do so.  With respect to Kravitz’s challenge to PhoneDog’s assertion that the password and the Account followers do, in fact, constitute trade secrets — and whether Kravitz’s conduct constitutes misappropriation, the court ruled that the such determinations require the consideration of evidence outside the scope of the pleading and should, therefore, be raised at summary judgment, rather than on a motion to dismiss.  The parties ultimately resolved the dispute.
  • The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Triple Play v. National Labor Relations Board, No. 14-3284 (2d. Cir. Oct. 21, 2015) affirmed an NLRB decision that a Facebook discussion regarding an employer’s tax withholding calculations and an employee’s “like” of the discussion constituted concerted activities protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. The Facebook activity at issued involved a former employee posting to Facebook, “[m]aybe someone should do the owners of Triple Play a favor and buy it from them. They can’t even do the tax paperwork correctly!!! Now I OWE money . . . Wtf!!!!” A current employee “liked” the post and another current employee posted, “I owe too. Such an asshole.” The employer terminated the two employees for their Facebook activity. The 2nd Circuit affirmed the NLRB’s decision that the employer’s termination of the two employees for their aforementioned Facebook activity was unlawful.

The following is a collection of social media policies that have been implemented by various companies:  http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies/. While these policies can serve as a helpful guide, companies should tailor their own social media policies and consult with counsel.

For more information, please contact your Seyfarth Shaw LLP attorney, Robert B. Milligan at rmilligan@seyfarth.com, Daniel P. Hart at dhart@seyfarth.com or Joshua Salinas at jsalinas@seyfarth.com.