Who Owns Employees' Twitter Accounts?

http://ow.ly/7xjxU

An article by Kashmir Hill posted on Forbes.com website.

This article discusses a legal dispute over the ownership rights to a Twitter account that was used by an employee whom left his company, and continued to use the Twitter account.

The article states, "A mobile phone review site called PhoneDog says that one of its former employee’s Twitter accounts is worth $42,500 per month, and it wants it back. PhoneDog sued blogger Noah Kravitz this summer, saying that his taking his @Phonedog_Noah account with him when he left the site in October 2010 was the equivalent of stealing the company’s property. Kravitz countered that he created the account of his own accord for both personal and professional tweeting, and after leaving the company changed the Twitter handle to @noahkravitz with the company’s knowledge. A judge ruled last week that the company’s complaint is worthy of going to trial."  A link to the judges' ruling is provided in the article.

The article discusses certain employers, such as Dell, provide notification to employees that if they are Tweeting as a Dell employee that Dell owns the account.  The author cites an example of Dell employees having more than one Twitter account, a personal account and a business account.