Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Please join the webcast about Social Media Use with my good friends Michelle Cheng, Yvonne Gierczyk-Skasko, and me sponsor by the ALI-ABA (American Law Institute – American Bar Association) which be live on December 7, 2010 at 12:30pm CST. Michelle, Yvonne, and I will discuss our experiences with Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, and many other Social Media sites. We will discuss the Coca Cola Social Media Principles, a recommended Law Firm Social Media Policy, and this top ten list of the legal risks associated with employee use of Social Media:

1. Copyright Infringement – posting content without permission from the owner
2. Trademark Infringement – showing third party logos/TMs without permission
3. Right of Publicity/Privacy – showing a person’s image/likeness without permission
4. Defamation, Libel and Slander – making false claims about a person
5. False Advertising/Unfair Competition – making false claims about a product or service
6. FTC Guides on Endorsements & Testimonials in Advertising – truth in advertising principles apply in digital media and word of mouth marketing. Bloggers or Social Media influencers that are compensated to blog/post/tweet about the Company must disclose the fact that they were compensated. Employees should disclose the connection to their employer when blogging/tweeting/posting about the Company’s products or services in Social Media.
7. Disclosure of Proprietary/Confidential Information –disclosure of material information
8. Labor – FLSA issues - e.g. non-bargained for employees engaging in Social Media during off-hours.
9. Employee/HR issues – employee conduct on Social Media
10. Collection and Retention of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

Please join us on December 7th AT 12:30pm CST and of course we welcome your comments and feedback.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerman recently announced significant changes to Facebook expanding 100’s of websites with "open graph" and  “like” which may revolutionize the Internet. At the annual f8 Facebook outside developers’ conference on April 21, 2010 Zuckerman demonstrated "open graph" and how the use of “like” on hundreds of websites (including Yelp, CNN, Pandora, ESPN, and IMDb) will allow the 400+ million friends to share their likes which in turn will be posted to their Facebook pages. According to Mashable.com Facebook “has created a platform that allows sites and apps to share information about users in order to tailor offers, features and services to each one’s interests and tastes — even if that individual has never visited the site before.” Zuckerman explained how most information on the Internet is lost in time once posted, referring to a tweets, text messages, and the like, but the new Facebook "open graph" and "like" will permit information to live forever on the Internet.

Microsoft Docs on Facebook

In conjunction with the f8 conference Microsoft announced a new beta for Docs on Facebook to facilitate access to Microsoft apps through Facebook that “allows users to create, edit and share Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents via the new Docs.com Website. Users can then share those documents with their Facebook friends, as well as give them editing privileges.” Microsoft’s collaboration with Microsoft is clearly competition for Google, Google apps, and the new Google Buzz.

Senator Doesn’t “Like” Facebook’s Instant Personalization Features

Under the new "open graph" and "like" Facebook automatically changed the privacy features, so within days of Facebook’s announcement Senator Charles Schumer of New York wrote a letter to the FTC “urging them to create privacy guidelines for Facebook and other social networking sites.” We need to watch closely to see what, if anything, the FTC may do. My blog on January 14, 2010 included a link to an interview with Zuckerman where he commented that the age of privacy is over. So perhaps he was referring to the new "open graph" and "like" features may be part of his plan to actually make that happen

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For purposes of dealing with web 2.0 the White House Memo released on April 7, 2010 about social media specifically states that “interactive meeting tools—including but not limited to public conference calls, webinars, blogs, discussion boards, forums, message boards, chat sessions, social networks, and online communities—to be equivalent to in-person public meetings.” The White House Memo is a follow-up to President Obama’s January 21, 2009 (day after the President was sworn-in) “calling for the establishment of ‘a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.’” Fascinating development that blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Yelp, and the like are public meetings which means that one should expect little privacy from use of these online services.

Majority of Government Agencies Use Social Networks

This report states that a majority of government agencies now use social networks is hardly a news flash, but put in context of the White House’s Memo that use of social networks are public meetings may change the public view of how they communicate. Of the 400+ million Facebook members of an estimated 70% are outside the US, and one may wonder how communications across international borders impacts the declaration that social media is public meetings.

Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0

This recently filed class action suit accuses Yelp of extortion to get bad comments removed from Yelp and lower rankings by reviewers. It remains to be seen whether this case will succeed, but if Yelp is considered a public meeting by the White House it makes one wonder how extortion fits in. Not to mention that the 50 million a day of tweets on Twitter are considered public meetings, even though at least 14,000 are followers of a Doonesbury’s cartoon character Roland Hedley! Web 2.0 is definitely taking us in interesting directions!

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