This is very interesting news from Clark Howard today:
Employers monitor your social networking profileAre the Facebook posts and Twitter tweets you make while away from the job immune from the prying eyes of your employer? The New York Times reports that new software called Social Sentry is ensuring everything you do online is being scrutinized.
Employers pay between $2 and $8 per employee (depending on company size) to have Social Sentry’s proprietary software automatically track employees in the social media sphere. The Social Sentry service is only available for Facebook and Twitter at this point, but it will soon expand to cover YouTube, MySpace and LinkedIn.
Six out of 10 companies now say they have a social media monitoring policy. Employers are considering anything that’s publicly accessible as something that you waive your right to privacy on.
So those racy jokes posted on your “wall” can lead to dismissal, no matter how good a job you’re doing at work. Remember, you serve at your employer’s pleasure.
This is just WEIRD. I’m all for employers cracking the whip on the job. Employees should not be using their work time for fooling around.
BUT employers spying on employees’ personal lives?? No, employees do NOT “serve” at the employer’s pleasure. Not people in a free country, that is. :-p Government, bureaucrats, and big business have too much control over our lives.
April 30, 2010 at 12:10 pm
We are heading down the dangerous path of becoming a technocracy instead of a democracy. When it became OK for your employer to monitor your every move, eavesdrop on your private conversations in your home, on your phone, everything, we ceased to have the right to freedom of speech, the right to privacy. All of this amounts to the psychological rape of an individual.
May 3, 2010 at 9:32 am
Right you are, Pam! Spying USED to be illegal. Now, if it’s a big business, employer, or government entity, it’s acceptable. :-p