This is a relatively new legal subject, so there isn’t much law out there. In December, 2011, a Pennsylvania federal court answered this question in the negative. In the case of Eagle v. Morgan, Linda Eagle, the founder of a company, Edcomm, had developed a significant LinkedIn presence closely connected to Edcomm. In 2010, Edcomm was purchased. In 2011, she was terminated and Edcomm took over her LinkedIn account. She sued Edcomm. Shortly thereafter, she regained control of her LinkedIn account and refused to return it to Edcomm. Edcomm counterclaimed against her in her lawsuit, contending that by regaining control of the LinkedIn account and refusing to return it to Edcomm, she had misappropriated Edcomm’s trade secrets. She moved to dismiss Edcomm’s misappropriation claim. With little analysis, the court dismissed the claim, stating that the LinkedIn contacts on the Eagle/Edcomm account were “generally known . . . or capable of being easily derived from public information.”
In March, 2012, a Colorado federal court came to a different conclusion. In Christou, et al. v. Beatport, LLC, a nightclub company sued an ex-employee for stealing the company’s MySpace “friends” list. The ex-employee moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that a MySpace “friends” list couldn’t be a trade secret. The court denied the ex-employee’s motion, holding that a company’s MySpace profiles and friends list can be a trade secret because, online, a MySpace profile contains a lot more information than just the “friend’s” name. It gives the owner of the profile the “friend’s” personal information, including interests, preferences, and contact information that can have commercial value. It allows the “friend” to be contacted and advertised to. This information goes beyond what is publicly available. Duplicating all the information available from the “friends” list would be time-consuming and costly. The public can see the names of the company’s “friends” online, but the public does not have all the other information that the company gets by virtue of having these “friends.”
In September, 2014, another federal court held that LinkedIn contacts could be a trade secret. In Cellular Accessories For Less, Inc. v. Trinitas, LLC, a company sued an ex-employee who had left to form a competing company and taken his LinkedIn contacts with him. The ex-employee moved for dismissal of the lawsuit. The court denied his motion, holding that the LinkedIn contacts that he had developed while working for his former company could be the company’s trade secret. The company had encouraged the employee to develop LinkedIn contacts during the employment. The court said that the LinkedIn contacts may – or may not – have been viewable by other LinkedIn users; the ex-employee’s motion papers did not say whether the contacts were publicly viewable. Since they may not have been publicly viewable, they could be the company’s trade secrets.
There you have it. What do you think?
