Noah Kravitz, a California-based blogger, is being sued by his former employer, PhoneDog, which is seeking damages because he failed to relinquish his Twitter account when he left the company to work for a rival.
PhoneDog said that it had invested in growing the number of followers that Mr Kravitz had on Twitter and the account to be its property. The company told the New York Times: "We intend to aggressively protect our customer lists and confidential information, intellectual property, trademark and brands."Though disputes over company Twitter accounts are relatively new - and British law is of course different from American law - this case is not without precedent. Earlier this year, the BBC's chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg moved from the BBC to ITV and took her Twitter account - and its 58,000 followers - with her. The BBC did not seek legal ownership of her account.
The question of social media account ownership has even reached British courts. In 2008, a British recruitment consultant, Mark Ions, wasordered to hand over his LinkedIn account to his former employer, Hays. A court ruled that Mr Ions contacts constituted confidential information gathered during his work for Hays and therefore the former employer had a right to access the account.
It's less likely, under British law at least, that an employer would be able to claim ownership of a Twitter or Facebook account belonging to an employee or former employer.
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