Too many articles about the legal ramifications of corporate blogs focus entirely on the negative side of blogs. This makes sense; corporate lawyers are hired with the intent of keeping the company safe and limiting risk. Marketing, extending your brand, and keeping employees and customers happy are someone else’s responsibilities.
However, As Blogging Grows, So Do Its Do’s and Don’ts, over at Law.com’s Legal Technology is a much more even-handed approach. (In fact, its do’s outnumber its don’ts about 2-to-1.)
There’s advice for public companies (do be mindful of security laws…risks associated with…making material misstatements that could manipulate the stock price and expose the company to liability for securities fraud under Rule 10b-5), companies with trade secrets, and just about anyone else.
The article can be summarized by the final quote:
The key to sticking with the “Do’s” is remembering that corporate blogging is like any other business communication that represents the company: Honesty and common sense go a long way to keeping the company (and its blog) on the right side of the law.
I like the expression which I believe is the Microsoft mantra – anyway, I heard it from Microsoft blogger Frank Arrigo, “blog smart” (as he mentions in this post http://blogs.msdn.com/frankarr/archive/2006/03/07/544961.aspx)
Comment by Des Walsh — February 24, 2007 @ 2:50 am
We just launched a company blog from our marketing department. We use it as another vehicle for releasing information.
One step we took toward controlling the content of the blog was limiting the amount of contributors and setting up an editing/revision policy upon receipt of a potential post. Having two or three people quickly scan a new post cannot hurt before you hit publish.
By the way thank you for pointing out that article. One can never be too prepared.
Comment by GMI Blog — February 27, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
What no insider stock tips from company blogs?
Actually company blogs provide a great opportunity for key executives to provide personal insights and ideas.
Comment by Charlie Cook — May 3, 2007 @ 3:44 pm