Facebook: No plans to sue employers asking for your password | Hacker News Reader

Facebook: No plans to sue employers asking for your password

zdnet.com

29 pointsSlimy13 comments

I hope no one stops employers from doing this - great way to figure out who not to work for.

I'm not very familiar with the legal community, but is there a reason they would have to clarify this? I feel like this undermines their position significantly -- from "we will actively try to stop this" to "we don't like this and really hope people don't do it."

Without the legal threat, why would an offending company give this a second thought?

> Without the legal threat, why would an offending company give this a second thought?

Facebook didn't say that it won't sue in the future; the Facebook spokesman merely said "we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employer". Additionally, logging into someone else's Facebook account may be a criminal offense under 18 U.S.C. § 1030. A United States Attorney's office may conceivably file criminal charges against a company or individual who logs into a Facebook computer system without authorization from Facebook.

In terms of the former, my confusion remains as to why Facebook would want clarify that. The statement you cite is also incomplete. When considering the second clause:

"While we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employers, we look forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better safeguard the privacy of our users."

I don't think its an unreasonable inference that their future plans don't include direct litigation, but rather indirect legislative support -- which seems much less active than their original statement (thus my parent comment). Why would you need to publicly clarify this? It seems like their interest would be better served by letting offending companies think that Facebook might bring a lengthy legal battle to their doorstep.

As a lawyer, I can tell you their grounds to actually sue employers here are fairly flimsy (grounds for individuals to sue are greater). The likelihood is that they would look a lot worse when they don't sue a lot of folks, especially after they said they would, so they need to backpedal.

But regardless of whether they actually have grounds, I guess my question is still: why do they need to backpedal publicly? That is, why can't they just say "we're going to sue" and then not? Is that just a faux pas in the legal community, or is there a legal reason why?

Tortious interference? When Party C (the prospective employer) attempts to induce Party A (the prospective employee) to break a contract (the TOS) they have with Party B (Facebook)?

Gee, thanks for that completely empty gesture there guys.

It's not completely empty. It boosts the authority of facebook users to deny employers' requests.

Maybe not as much as we'd like, but it's still something.

Too bad. The stick is the only thing businesses understand.

This is what lawyers always say. "Do or do not. There is no will."

Employers already have excessive power and authority over job applicants. There needs to be some laws in place to purge the information they collect on candidates.

Why would my employer want to have my Facebook account and what happens if I'm not in Facebook at all? Too suspicious to hire?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com