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Tag Archives: social media account

Who Owns an Employee’s Social Media Account?

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Irvin Schein
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In a late 2011 action called PhoneDog v Kravitz, a mobile device news website sued a former employee, Mr. Kravitz, in U.S. District Court in California.

Kravitz had left the company with a Twitter account, including 17,000 followers, that he had developed and cultivated for PhoneDog during his employment.  PhoneDog asked Kravitz to turn over the password and he refused to do so.

PhoneDog took the position that the Twitter account and its password involved a trade secret and that the failure of Kravitz to hand these over constituted a misappropriation of a trade secret.  In this case, the alleged trade secret consisted of what was essentially a customer list in the form of the 17,000 account followers.

PhoneDog took the position that by maintaining the Twitter accounts, Kravitz was using confidential information to disrupt PhoneDog’s relationship with its customers.

Presumably at the bottom of PhoneDog’s complaint was the fact that after resigning from PhoneDog, Kravitz began working for one of PhoneDog’s competitors and used his Twitter account on behalf of the new employer.

For his part, Kravitz took the position that the account was his and there was simply no economic relationship between PhoneDog and any of the account’s followers.  As a result, his use of the Twitter account did not disrupt any ongoing business.

Kravitz brought a motion to dismiss the action on the basis that it could not possibly succeed.  The Court disagreed with Kravitz, holding that the accounts and their passwords could indeed constitute trade secrets and therefore a trial would be necessary to decide the point.

After litigating for about a year, the parties settled.  Details of the settlement have been maintained in confidence but Kravitz does continue to use the Twitter user name that he created for the account after leaving PhoneDog’s employ.  As a result, the final answer to this interesting question will have to await some other case at some other time.

In the meantime, however, this case serves as a useful reminder to prospective employers and employees to at least consider the ownership of social media accounts when entering into an employment relationship.

Posted in Cases | Tagged irvin schein, litigation, social media account, social media law, social media ownership, Twitter | Leave a reply
Me receiving my LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution

Every 36 years, I graduate from Osgoode Hall Law School with a degree. In 2014, I obtained my Master of Laws in Alternative Dispute Resolution. My mediation practice is open for business!

Some of my clients would benefit from wearing my Trojans goalie equipment in court.

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Welcome to my blog.

For those who do not know me, I am a lawyer and mediator at the Toronto law firm of Minden Gross LLP.

I have been a commercial litigation lawyer for over 40 years and I have also been practicing as a mediator since obtaining my Masters Degree in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

You are welcome to click on “About” above for more details on my background and qualifications or on “Irvin Schein Mediation” to read about my mediation practice.

What all of this information will tell you, of course, is what I do. My bio will show you that I litigate business disputes, mostly on behalf of owner entrepreneurs and mostly against businesses, financial institutions, and people who badly need to be taught a lesson.

That is what I do, but that is certainly not the reason I went to law school many years ago. That is how I make a living, but that is not what drives me to work crazy hours and make all kinds of sacrifices on behalf of clients. And that is why I started this blog.

I practice litigation law because of the things that I believe. The first thing that I believe, paradoxically, is that litigation is a lousy way to resolve disputes. That is why I also developed skills as a mediator. However, I also believe that in many cases, litigation is simply unavoidable. Nevertheless, I do know that the best contribution I can make to the business community is to share my ideas on how litigation can be avoided.

Secondly, I believe that if litigation cannot be avoided, either because someone has no choice but to sue or because someone has found themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit, it is possible to get through the litigation process without losing either one’s mind or life savings.

So if you are a person who also understands litigation as something that is undesirable, but often inevitable, and something through which you might one day need to be guided quickly and inexpensively, ultimately achieving the best result reasonably available to you, then you and I are on the same wavelength.

In this blog, I share my perspective on recent cases, in the context of why I practice law. I may take the liberty of sharing with you some personal observations on news of the day, from time to time. I hope that you will find these occasional digressions to be interesting and thought-provoking.

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