Short version: people are once again talking about a lawsuit that includes the word “LinkedIn” and suggesting that connecting to coworkers / ex-coworkers could be covered by employment agreements.
THAT ISN”T THE ISSUE AT ALL.
If you agree to not solicit company employees, and actually do that, you will get sued – even if the method of solicitation is through LinkedIn, IM, email, facebook, or twitter.
We talked about this three months ago…
Covered here in March!
Computer World is reporting the issue as having “flown under the radar”, but no – it was covered and debunked here in March under this article: What Non-Solicit Means
Just because they missed it, doesn’t mean you missed it;-)
[And no, I’m not going to point to their recent article because it’s just plain hype]
Non-Solicit
And I don’t know why there’s an attempt to blow this into more than it is. The facts don’t even appear to be much in question – an ex-employee contacted former co-workers and asked them to come with her to a new company.
The communication happens to have taken place through LinkedIn – instead of that harder to trace medium known as the telephone…
Not a likely precedent setter
I don’t see any reasonable link to suggest that this will in any way affect how courts will view LinkedIn or any other social site connection.
It might affect how records are subpoenaed or verified, and that isn’t really news now is it?
But of course, if it’s a slow news week, you might artificially raise a flag and say that this case is controversial…
Move along people, there’s nothing to see here…
Let’s keep looking for places to talk about LinkedIn though – how about that?
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock