A Dispute Over Who Owns a Twitter Account Goes to Court
By JOHN BIGGS December 25, 2011
How much is a tweet worth? And how much does a Twitter follower cost?
In base economic terms, the value of individual Twitter updates seems to be negligible; after all, what is a Twitter post but a few bits of data sent caroming through the Internet? But in a world where social media's influence can mean the difference between a lucrative sale and another fruitless cold call, social media accounts at companies have taken on added significance.
The question is: Can a company cash in on, and claim ownership of, an employee's social media account, and if so, what does that mean for workers who are increasingly posting to Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus during work hours?
A lawsuit filed in July could provide some answers.
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Substitute "Telephone number" for "Twitter Account", and this gets /very/ interesting: is there any precedent to cover "home" phone numbers that an employee of a business had to hand over when leaving?
Bill Horne Moderator