That’s not very web 2.0

The Financial Times in the UK has just proved to me once and for all that finance types who read/write the Financial Times will never understand the “open web” or the concept of sharing, communities or being a better person.

Someone has written in to the FT with a concern:

I run a national retail business employing over 100 sales representatives who are encouraged to use social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, to market the business and build contacts. But I’m concerned that if one of my sales reps leaves, they could take these contacts with them. Where do I stand on this, given that these contacts are built-up during work time?

My answer would have been along the lines of “Don’t worry about it so much - if your clients really like you, they’ll continue to use your product/services, and your leaving employee doesn’t take anything away from you when he/she leaves. People make contacts all the time in business, and they will use them in the future to their benefit. That’s the way business works - you can’t make someone forget a contact when they leave. Go and stress about something else like making your product better, or making your employees so happy they don’t want to leave.”

I personally have kept in touch with loads of contacts I’ve met at previous roles. And in staying in touch, I am not harming my ex-employers in any way, or taking anything away from them.

However I am not a Financial Times lawyer. Their answer The answer from a lawyer who wrote in a response -

What is clear is that where a list of addresses is created, maintained and contained on an employer’s email programme and backed up by the employer or by arrangement made with the employer, the list belongs to the employer and should not be copied, used or removed by the employee for use outside employment or after the employment comes to an end.

This may still be the case where the employee brings his own contacts list to his employer when he joins but subsequently during the course of his employment makes further contacts whose details are recorded in his employer’s email programme. Even if the list contains purely personal contacts as well as business contacts, the employer will own the list. This is because the employer’s position is protected by the general (common) law and, in many cases, by a set of regulations: the Copyright and Rights in Database Regulations 1997.

Do the same rules apply to lists or databases contained in social networking sites? I think you have a strong argument that you do own the “database” of contacts, particularly as the internet medium through which the sites are accessed are owned by you and the networking is done as part and parcel of the employees’ contractual duties.

Whoaaaa. Maybe I’ve been out of corporate for too long but seriously, that’s pretty scary. My employee would own all my contacts? I can never call or email my friends again as they are owned by my ex-employee?

And how far does this extend? If I go to a networking night and make connections and collect business cards in my own time does my employer own them? What if I met them in my own time, but happen to log them on linked in? What about if I meet people in my lunch hour?

Maybe it’s the law but it just doesn’t seem particularly friendly, social or really make you want to help your employer out.

It reminds me of a conversation I heard about Recaptcha. Recaptcha is a great way of digitising books - when computers can’t accurately read a scan, they will serve a word to you instead of a captcha. The user types in the word, and books get digitised, one word at a time (they have a much better explanation on their site).

I think it’s brilliant, it’s harnessing the crowd for the greater good. Anyway when recaptcha was explained to this high-up financial director he looked incredibly perturbed and said “Why should I do work for someone else for free. They need to get real”. And then installed normal captcha. Sigh.

I don’t mean to disparage everyone who works in finance - I do know loads of people in the finance industry that believe in the greater good of the web, and I also know lots of lovely lawyers.

Maybe it’s just when you combine the two?

This post is tagged under: random thoughts