An Oakland blogger is being sued by his former employer for continuing to use a Twitter account after he left the company.
From CNN:
PhoneDog, a website devoted to all things mobile products and services, sued former employee Noah Kravitz for $340,000, according to the complaint filed in US District Court in the Northern District of California.
The lawsuit, which was filed in July, alleges that Kravitz’ continued use of a Twitter account he was “given use of” while employed with PhoneDog was a misappropriation of trade secrets and damaged the company’s business, goodwill, and reputation.
Kravitz was a product reviewer and video blogger for PhoneDog for about four years, during which time he used the Twitter account @PhoneDog_Noah. The complaint states that Kravitz “used the Account to disseminate information and promote PhoneDog’s services on behalf of PhoneDog.”
But Kravitz told CNN he opened the account, linked it to his personal e-mail address and maintained it himself while tweeting both personal and professional things throughout his employment with PhoneDog, including links to his own articles and colleagues’ articles, as well as tweets about sports, arts, and food.
This morning, Noah Kravitz; Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute; and Tom McInerney, partner in a national labor and employment specialty law firm, discussed the case on KQED Radio’s Forum. The show will be archived here later today.
Our social media dude Ian Hill is way into this story and tweeted (natch) the Forum show live…