Firms taking action against worker blogs

Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst at the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said employees often "don't realize the First Amendment doesn't protect their job."

The First Amendment only restricts government control of speech. So private employers are free to fire at will in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory or in retaliation for whistle-blowing or union organizing, labor experts say.

A few companies actually do encourage personal, unofficial blogs and have policies defining do's and don'ts for employees who post online.  They recognize that there can be value in engaging customers through thoughtful blogs.  "There's always a risk, but you always have that risk anytime you put an employee on the phone," Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li said.

Sun Microsystems Inc. encourages blogging, offering server space for personal blogs but warning bloggers not to reveal secrets or make financial disclosures that might violate securities law.  Sun also offers advice on how to keep blogs interesting.

Only in rare cases are employees "unofficially asked to soften some wording," said Tim Bray, the Sun policy's chief architect. Rather, he said, the policy creates a structure for discussions between employees and their managers.

Jeff Seul, general counsel at Groove Networks Inc., said the policy he wrote for his company aims to tolerate dissent but not disrespect.

Microsoft refused to comment on Hanscom's case, but pointed out that it encourages blogging and has more than 1,500 unofficial bloggers — the bulk on Microsoft's official Web sites.

Christopher Cobey, an employment lawyer at the Littler Mendelson law firm's Silicon Valley office, said publicity over recent blog-related firings has prompted increased inquiries from companies about developing policies.

But some experts question whether a separate blogging policy is needed at all, given more general employment guidelines and common sense.

Anil Dash, vice president at blog software developer Six Apart Ltd., said publicized firings have been generally not over blogging but over other violations that happened to be done through blogging.

Mark Dichter, chairman of labor and employment at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, said policies can tie the hands of employers.  "It requires you to anticipate and draw lines," he said, "and once you set policies then you get into litigation into which side of the line it fell."

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