ownership

Earlier this year, I attended Internet World 2009 at Earls Court.

One of the sessions I attended talked about the legal considerations that people should have when looking at web 2.0 (what does that mean again )

I'm going over my notes again and was reminded of an example given about an employee in a company's sales team who had a significant contact book on various social (and business) network, built up over a number of years. The employee left one company to join another and used his contact book to sell to the same people on behalf of his new employer. There was a dispute between the company and their ex-employee over who "owned" the contacts. There were contact on networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and others powered by Ning.

It ended up in court as both sides claimed ownership and the ruling was in favour of the original company. Not the individual...

This has some pretty serious implications for people as they look to use social networks to further their reach - and for us as a company as we start to reach out to customers...

My view is that contacts made in the conduct of business are probably the employers, however those made at home, outside the employer's time are not. What's your view?