Law Commons^™

Can A Person's "Slate" Ever Really Be "Cleaned"? The Modern-Day Implications Of Pennsylvania's Clean Slate Act, Kimberly E. Capuder

St. John's Law Review

(Exceprt)

In 2006, Khalia was arrested for a “low-level counterfeiting charge.” While Khalia was innocent and never convicted for the charged offense, she still had a criminal record. Because she was concerned that future employers would “view her as a thief,” she never applied to any of her dream jobs. But once Khalia’s arrest record was automatically sealed, she finally had enough confidence to send in a job application to a prestigious consulting firm, and was offered the position. Khalia believes that her newly sealed criminal record “means a future without judgment.” And this future without judgment was made possible …

Social Media And The Job Market: How To Reconcile Applicant Privacy With Employer Needs, Peter B. Baumhart

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the modern technological age, social media allows us to communicate vast amounts of personal information to countless people instantaneously. This information is valuable to more than just our “friends” and “followers,” however. Prospective employers can use this personal data to inform hiring decisions, thereby maximizing fit and minimizing potential liability. The question then arises, how best to acquire this information? For job applicants, the counter-question is how best to protect the privacy of their social media accounts. As these two competing desires begin to clash, it is important to find a method to mediate the conflict. Existing privacy law, …

Whose Social Network Account: A Trade Secret Approach To Allocating Rights, Zoe Argento

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Who has the superior right to a social network account? This is the question in a growing number of disputes between employers and workers over social network accounts. The problem has no clear legal precedent. Although the disputes implicate rights under trademark, copyright, and privacy law, these legal paradigms fail to address the core issue. At base, disputes over social network accounts are disputes over the right to access the people, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, who follow an account. This Article evaluates the problem from the perspective of the public interest in social network use, particularly the …

Managing The Impact Of New Media On The Employment Relationship, Susan A. O'Sullivan-Gavin, John H. Shannon

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Attention to privacy issues in the workplace has increased over the past two decades as use of electronic mail and text messages has made these means of communication commonplace. Beyond text messages and emails, employees can access the internet at their place of employment at many different entry points. This access can be through company issued desktops or laptops, mobile phones, mobile internet devices (MIDs), Smartphone technology (photography; video and voice recording capabilities; file transfer and storage), off-site internet connections, Wi-Fi access or hot spots. Employees can access and/or post information on various sites including blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, instant …

Telecommunications 2000 Strategy, Hr Practices & Performance, Rosemary Batt, Alexander Colvin, Harry C. Katz, Jeffrey Keefe

Alexander Colvin

This report constitutes the first benchmarking survey of business and human resource practices among a nationally representative sample of workplaces in the broadly defined telecommunications industry that includes wireline, wireless, cable, and internet providers. It grows out of a multi-year study of organizational change in the industry, and is based on extensive field study, site visits, interviews, and surveys conducted by research teams at Cornell and Rutgers Universities. Managers at 577 establishments across the country gave generously of their time during a lengthy telephone survey. The study was made possible through a generous grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. …

The Need To Prevent Employers From Accessing Private Social Network Profiles, Brett Novick

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

In March 2012, social network privacy became a conversation topic after news reports of the story of Justin Bassett, a job applicant who withdrew his application in the middle of an interview when the interviewer asked him for the username and password of his private Facebook account. Although the issue has received much attention from the public and media, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has stated that it has no interest in prosecuting employers for asking for social networking account information. Fortunately, legislation that would make it illegal for employers to ask for the username and passwords for social networking …

Workplace Consequences Of Electronic Exhibitionism And Voyeurism, William A. Herbert

William A. Herbert

The popularity of email, blogging and social networking raises important issues for employers, employees and labor unions. This article will explore contemporary workplace issues resulting from the related social phenomena of electronic exhibitionism and voyeurism. It will begin with a discussion of the international social phenomenon of individuals electronically distributing their personal thoughts, opinions, and activities to a potential worldwide audience while at the same time retaining a subjective sense of privacy. The temptation toward such exhibitionism has been substantially enhanced by the advent of Web 2.0. The article then turns to the legal implications of electronic voyeurism including employer …

Virtual Intermediaries Ii - Canadian Solutions (Drop Shipments) Compared With Us, Japanese & Eu Approaches, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Virtual travel agents are opportunistic internet-based travel agents. They are intermediary businesses that create mutually beneficial three-party transactions that secure accommodations for a traveler that: (a) meet the basic needs of the traveler (at a discount), (b) fills vacant room for accommodation retailers with guests that pay below market, but above standard costs, and (c) profit from the extra cash, the margin in the transaction.

The virtual intermediary’s eye is always on the discount and the cash flow. One of the things that catches their attention are the accommodation taxes which they collect from the traveler in advance and remit …

Social Isolation And American Workers: Employee "Blogging" And Legal Reform, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

This article further demonstrates that state common law exceptions to the employment-at-will doctrine are not providing significant redress to employees fired or otherwise disciplined for blogging.

Workplace Blogs And Workers' Privacy, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

In this article we focus on a related issue. We discuss the development of blogs, and the virtual “space” where blogs and bloggers interact the “blogosphere” and their impact on the issue of workers' privacy. To some extent it would seem a bit of a contradiction to talk about privacy and blogging in the same article. Blogging, as we will discuss below, does not appear to be the most private of enterprises. There are, we argue, a number of interesting privacy issues raised by the development of blogs as an employee communication tool and by the way employers have reacted …

Sexual Harassment: Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace, Donald P. Harris, Daniel B. Garrie, Matthew J. Armstrong

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Digital communications sexual harassment is on the rise. Such harassment occurs through sexually offensive and unwarranted e-mails, placing harassing messages on electronic bulletin boards, and other forms of harassment that occur through the Internet. To date, courts have remained silent on the issue of sexual harassment by digital communications. Should this type of harassment be treated any differently than harassment that occurs in the physical space? The somewhat surprising answer is yes.

This Article advocates applying a new judicial framework for addressing digital communications sexual harassment. This new framework accounts for the real-world technology in the digital workplace and the …

Think Before You Click: Online Anonymity Does Not Make Defamation Legal, Orit Goldring, Antonia L. Hamblin

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Re Aliant Telecom Inc And Ac & Twu, Innis Christie

Innis Christie Collection

Policy Grievance 01-05 dated November 8, 2001 concerning the Contracting Out of Internet Member Services — Internet Dial Help Desk, which the Union alleges is contrary to Letter of Intent, Appendix E to the Common Part of the Collective Agreement between the Employer and the Union effective January 1, 1999 January 1, 2002, which the parties agree is the Collective Agreement applicable here. At the outset of the hearing, the parties agreed that I am properly seized of this matter and have jurisdiction to grant interim relief.