Thursday, March 22, 2012

Managing Information Risk and Archiving Social Media



http://ow.ly/9Oki0

An article by Ben Kerschberg posted on Forbes.com website.

This article discusses the implications of social media use by employees, and the potential legal risk it creates for corporations.

The article states, "Social media has changed the face of business. Whether in product marketing, consumer branding, customer relations, and/or human resources, the benefits of corporate social media are beyond dispute. Yet mounting evidence shows that the risks are, too. Last week, Symantec released the results of an independent survey of 2,000 global enterprises across a variety of industries with a minimum of 1,000 employees. (Symantec confirmed that “[t]he respondents do not represent any kind of grouping of former or current Symantec customers.”) The survey results speak to the heterogeneous nature of the types of electronically stored information (“ESI”) stored during legal proceedings. See Evan Koblentz, Symantec: Files, Databases Overtake Email in E-Discovery, Law Technology News (Sept. 19, 2011). As part of the survey, respondents were asked the following question:

How frequently are the following documents requested in conjunction with a legal, compliance, or regulatory request for [ESI]?

Forty one percent (41%) indicated social media. To put that figure in perspective, consider that email, that ubiquitous element of our daily work lives, was indicated only 58% of the time. (Multiple answers were allowed.) See Information Retention and eDiscovery Survey, Global Findings(Symantec 2011)."

The article further states, "Gartner Group predicts that by the end of 2013, half of all corporate litigants “will be asked to produce material from social media websites for e-discovery.” Symantec’s empirical data suggests that the 50% mark will be reached far sooner."

The article goes on to discuss corporate policies that should be in place to regulate the use of social media by employees, in order to be in position to react when potential abuses arise.

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