by: KATIE MARASCO, ESQ

Be careful what you preach. There are potential legal pitfalls for both employers and employees when it comes to blogging about what goes on in the workplace. The most recent count I could find, says there are over 112 million blogs, which doesn’t count the millions of Chinese blogs which are tracked by, apparently, some different tracking system (and I believe that number is about a year old). And there are roughly 175,000 new blogs added everyday with blogs being updated to the tune of 1.6 million posts daily (again, this is a year old number).

Who knows how many of those are people ranting about their employer or, in turn, their employees but I’d venture to say it’s probably a pretty popular topic. But it’s not without consequence. Legal trouble can stem from violating terms of employment, confidentiality breaches or even libel and defamation. Your employer probably has rules against sharing company secrets and possible has conditions precluding speaking about company matters in a public forum. If you are posting derogatory or unfavorable statements about other people those individuals may have a case against you for libel and defamation (see last week’s blog for more). Regardless of what the particular regulation is in place to prohibit be careful what you preach. Losing your job due to a public venting is probably not something you want to deal with. For more information regarding the potential legal pitfalls visit LawInfo for an attorney in your area.