Do you Own your Social Networking Profile?

I came across this interesting piece of debate, so apt a discussion in this new world of social networking for business - "Who owns your LinkedIn Profile". Social Networking is taken so much for granted these days that one is often taken aback by the implications of one's actions in cyberspace.


Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn are becoming all pervasive in a networked world, where making new friends and becoming part of professional memberships is the order of the day. However, LinkedIn strikes as a prominent example of the conundrum that the coming days would pose to those who are accustomed to the new way of "stayig in touch", and more so to the recruiting fraternity that has come to rely so much on the power of LinkedIn.


The debate discusses the ownership conflict that arises when a recruiter, who has built up his database brick-by-brick by initiatives in the social networking arena, quits his organisation and moves on - does his database belong to him or does his employer have the rights over the contacts that the employer has encouraged the recruiter to build?


This is an issue that could have wider ranging ramifications, as the border that seperates work from personal networking becomes one more shade of grey. With so many organisations using Twitter to promote and build their brands, what would happen when the person with thousands of followers moves on to another company? Would the company ask the person to shed all the followers in favour of the company and ask her to build her base afresh?


To be sure, this does look impractical. That social networking sites are more useful for business than what they were thought of, must come as no surprise. However, social networking is a tool that is available for anyone to leverage. As an employer, the company could encourage the employee to build his database and use it for professional purposes. However, I doubt if companies can really have a say over ownership issues of the LinkedIn or Twitter profiles built by employees, unless such clauses have been originally included in the employment agreement with the employee. The onus pretty much lies on the organisation to make such aspects clear and unambiguous, as it is the organisation that encourages such networking behaviour from its employee.


In the event of an employee moving on to greener pastures, and in the absence of such explicit agreements with the employee, the organisation should only hope to bring in a replacement for her, who has equally attractive, if not better, contacts in professional networking sites, which the organisation could very well leverage for its own business advantages.


All said, if an employee is so rich in professional (and personal) contacts, it makes sense for the organisation to try to retain the employee, such a valuable asset that she is to maintain on the payrolls.