Intellectual Property Law

Blockbuster Fires Blogger for 'Divulging Confidential Information'Hacking NetFlix

Blogger Earnest Pettie was terminated for "divulging confidential information" in the following post about the Blockbuster price increase: Blockbuster Total Access?What went wrong?. Here's a selection from the post:

To make matters worse, Blockbuster bungled Total Access further by changing the Total Access program prices and benefits and failing to effectively notify the customers of the changes. Customers lost the monthly free rental they received simply for being members, and they also lost their unlimited exchanges unless they subscribed to a more expensive plan. As for rank and file morale, there is nothing that brightens one?s day more than explaining to customers that they are going to be getting less for their money. The communication from Blockbuster on this effort was so poor that we are still explaining these changes that happened months ago.

A Blockbuster spokesperson would not comment on Pettie's firing, but had this to say about employees that have blogs:

I can tell you that we do not have an issue with employees who participate in blogging or have personal blogging sites. In fact, we have many employees who blog.

However, both for competitive reasons and because we are a publicly traded company, we have strict policies stating that employees are not allowed to disclose information about our business plans, proprietary marketing programs, financial information or other confidential information. We also make it clear that only designated employees are authorized to speak or otherwise release information on behalf of the company.

All employees know about these policies. As a matter of fact, when we join the company, each of us signs a document saying we understand these policies and that we understand a violation could result in termination.

As a publicly traded company, we have a responsibility to ensure that everyone adheres to this code of conduct.

If you're going to blog about the company you work for, be sure to understand the ground rules, and be very careful about what you say (and how you say it).

Full post as published by IP Law Daily on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).