Who owns my linkedin profile

Say I work for company XYZ and go on vacation, meet 10 interesting professionals, and they later add me to their Linkedin profile.

They added ME, not my company. Create one for the company. That said, and a future hope only in most cases, both sides have to work out how to be mutually supportive. Note, I said guidelines. Recruiters should demand such a company social media policy so that they know the rules up front.

Simple enough to do with export and import functionality. The tools change but the question is never outdated. I recommend that all employees add a clause in their employment contract or Job Offer that lays out who owns it, my expectation is always that the employee should own it.

Thank you Ed for the excellent comment. You brought up a whole new category of thought, that each HR should execute on a Social Media Policy that employees sign off on before joining. We are truly living in the Social Media Age. Thanks for the comment, Miles, and your advice is right on target. Interesting slant I have is that I was hired by my last company in in part because of the Linkedin network I had built while at a previous company. I was asked repeatedly if I would download my primary contacts into their ATS database and I know recruiters were also asked this.

Very insightful comment Dorothy. I am not from the recruiting field, but it would make sense that your network is part of the value that you bring to the table.

That being said, because LinkedIn combines your personal and professional network, I would feel very uncomfortable uploading that to any company database. To me it seems like a violation of privacy. I think, going forward, we all need to be a little more cognizant of what is at stake when we join a new company and get the rules straight before the misunderstandings begin. Great discussion, questions. Soooo, if LI can close down groups, can a company that has a paying relationship with LI get LI to close down profiles??

LI controls the agreement we all sign so they can change it at will. Thank you so much for your input Valerie. I have never heard LinkedIn firsthand do a sales pitch, but that technique is a scary stereotypical enterprise software power sell that I do not want to associate with LinkedIn. Let me repeat that there is no bigger fan in LinkedIn than myself, but if they start siding on the side of paying enterprises, we will start to see a lot more controversial things coming down the pipeline.

I agree that since we are in their sandbox we need to play by their rules. The problem is that out of the blue they shut down LinkedIn Groups or transfer ownership of groups without previous notice nor explanation there is documented proof of these things out there, not rumors. This is what scares me. The sad part is, if you are not associated with an enterprise, even if you are a paying customer you will lose out to the paying enterprise.

In such a scenario we all lose out. The mere act of reimbursing an individual for a monthly subscription fee does not change that relationship. Thanks for your comment anonymous , and you bring up an excellent point that the personal and the professional are now forever intertwined with the appearance and popularity of LinkedIn. Both clients and vendors alike are now my personal friends.

My husband has vendor and client relationships in the same industry, which by association become my contacts. I also have past consulting clients that are present clients of my employers. How can I possibly keep those 2 accounts from overlapping? Nor can those relationships be stopped if I were to ever leave the company. Thank you for your valuable contribution here Lonny.

Yes, social networking sites like LinkedIn are similar to CRMs in that they will contain customer databases for certain professions. I sincerely thank you for your input here and look forward to communicating with you again in the future. Thanks for your comment Leslie.

Well, if you are a recruiter I am not but I believe you are , I assume that building a network is part of your job, just as it would be in sales. Kevin Clark just gave an excellent comment on this and I thank you for your contribution as well! Thank you for your excellent comment Kevin. I would agree with your perspective on this, and I like the extreme example that you show. Indeed, network-building is inherent in the profession of recruiting, so how can you demand ownership of this asset in the form of turning over a social networking account?

I also agree that this person, just to be on the safe side, should set up a separate account and start re-adding contacts. I think there are two separate issues with the employer paying for the account being the less important issue. I will bet the trouble spot is going to be were you building your network while being paid by your employer?

My LinkedIn profile represents my entire business career and activities. Can they force me to change my profile and what is the best way to handle this situation?

The simple answer is no — your employer cannot force you to change your profile. The company does not have control over your personal LinkedIn profile. You may want to consider clarifying your job status on your profile to indicate that you now work part-time for the company and that you have started your own small business. The most important thing is to find out why your bosses are so concerned about your LinkedIn profile.

Is your new business in direct competition with your current company? Did the company ask you to sign a non-competition agreement when you started to work with them?

If they did and you did sign a non-competition agreement and if your new business is in competition with your employer, then they can legally ask you to change your profile in order to protect their business interests. You say that the company has no social media policy, but do they have any conflict-of-interest, fair-business-practices, or non-competition policies?

Therefore the employee was ordered to hand over details of the contacts that he had migrated to his personal LinkedIn account. However, he was not required to disclose all of his LinkedIn contacts to the employer because those contacts could include persons with no connection to the employer. In another case an employee who used a LinkedIn account solely for business purposes as part of her duties did not own the contacts.

In respect of intellectual property protection there is no legal right to raw data as such. However, legal protection may be afforded to databases where there has been a 'substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of the database'.

The owner of the database can prevent someone else extracting or reusing all, or any substantial part, of it. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, if the database is made by an employee in the course of his employment the employer will be regarded as the owner of the database. It is more difficult to allocate rights and responsibilities where employee and employer contacts are intermingled within one list, built up over a long period of time, and spanning different employment relationships.

Employers should ensure that employees understand the parameters of their LinkedIn use and place express restraints on that use. Not so well. Jefferson hired Light as a Sales Manager.

Jefferson sued Light alleging numerous state law claims including: defamation, tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duty, trade, disparagement, fraudulent misrepresentation, and breach of contract.