Navigating Social Media Legal Risks: Safeguarding Your Business (Que Biz-Tech) [Paperback]

Robert McHale (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2012 | ISBN-10: 078974953X | ISBN-13: 978-0789749536 | Edition: 1

The plain-English business guide to avoiding social media legal risks and liabilities—for anyone using social media for business—written specifically for non-attorneys!

You already know social media can help you find customers, strengthen relationships, and build your reputation, but if you are not careful, it also can expose your company to expensive legal issues and regulatory scrutiny. This insightful, first-of-its-kind book provides business professionals with strategies for navigating the unique legal risks arising from social, mobile, and online media. Distilling his knowledge into a 100% practical guide specifically for non-lawyers, author and seasoned business attorney, Robert McHale, steps out of the courtroom to review today’s U.S. laws related to social media and alert businesses to the common (and sometimes hidden) pitfalls to avoid. Best of all, McHale offers practical, actionable solutions, preventative measures, and valuable tips on shielding your business from social media legal exposures associated with employment screening, promotions, endorsements, user-generated content, trademarks, copyrights, privacy, security, defamation, and more...

 

You’ll Learn How To

•   Craft legally compliant social media promotions, contests, sweepstakes, and advertising campaigns

•   Write effective social media policies and implement best practices for governance

•   Ensure the security of sensitive company and customer information

•   Properly monitor and regulate the way your employees use social media

•   Avoid high-profile social media mishaps that can instantly damage reputation, brand equity, and goodwill, and create massive potential liability

•   Avoid unintentional employment and labor law violations in the use of social media in pre-employment screening

•   Manage legal issues associated with game-based marketing, “virtual currencies,” and hyper-targeting

•   Manage the legal risks of user-generated content (UGC)

•   Protect your trademarks online, and overcome brandjacking and cybersquatting

•   Understand the e-discovery implications of social media in lawsuits

 

 

 

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

 

About the Author

Robert McHale, Esq., is the founding member of R McHale Law (rmchale.com), a full-service law firm whose corporate practice represents clients on a wide variety of IT and intellectual property law matters, including privacy and data security, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, technology licensing, and other proprietary protections. By leveraging his business instinct, technical insight, and legal experience, Robert helps companies develop legal strategies that best promote their business objectives. His areas of focus include general corporate law, business litigation, web/mobile applications, online marketing, new media, and Internet and e-commerce technology.

 

Robert is a member of the Massachusetts bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.

 

He is a graduate of St. John’s College (BA) and Boston University School of Law (JD).

 

You can reach Robert at [e-mail] and follow him on Twitter at @rmchalelaw.

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Que Publishing; 1 edition (May 14, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078974953X
• ISBN-13: 978-0789749536
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Computers & Technology > Home Computing & How-to > Social Media How-to
  • #58 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Management > Digital Law

More About the Author

Robert McHale, Esq., is the founding member of R McHale Law (rmchale.com), a full-service law firm whose corporate practice represents clients on a wide variety of IT and intellectual property law matters, including privacy and data security, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, technology licensing, and other proprietary protections. By leveraging his business instinct, technical insight, and legal experience, Robert helps companies develop legal strategies that best promote their business objectives. His areas of focus include general corporate law, business litigation, web/mobile applications, online marketing, new media, and Internet and e-commerce technology.

Robert is a member of the Massachusetts bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.

He is a graduate of St. John's College (BA) and Boston University School of Law (JD).

You can reach Robert at [e-mail] and follow him on Twitter at @rmchalelaw.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading For Business Owners - Highly Recommended June 19, 2012

By C. F. Hill HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

"Navigating Social Media Legal Risks" is important reading not only for businesses wanting to leverage social media, but also for businesses with employees that use social media sites (which is just about everyone these days). We are small business owners that have Facebook and Twitter accounts and we have PCs that we allow our employees to use during the day. While we knew there were legal regulations that applied to business promotions on our website and over Facebook, we did not know that in some instances we could be held accountable for our employee's posts on social media, even if we were unaware of the content. This was a real eyeopener in many areas that I thought were fairly straight forward but would in fact have left us subject to possible litigation, especially in the "Human Resources" area.

This is a very well written book that avoids legal jargon, presenting the information in easy to understand language the layman can follow. The subjects cover business Promotions (i.e. advertising, endorsements, reviews, contests, giveaways), Personnel Issues (hiring, firing, disciplinary actions), User Generated Content, Trademark Issues, Privacy Issues (employee, customer), and the importance of establishing Social Media Policy for your business. I liked the inclusion of pertinent real-world legal case studies throughout the chapters and the "Do's and Don'ts" table at the end of every section. These made it easy to understand what is legal and what can potentially raise issues in the future.

The biggest surprise to me came in the legal issues surrounding using information gleamed from social media in the hiring process. It is a given these days that most employers will attempt to find information about candidates on the Internet, but this is not necessarily wise or legal (depending on the decisions that result). This could have caused some serious issues for us as we expand our workforce and I am very glad that the author included steps that would allow useful information to be gathered from social media sites, without risking violating laws.

This excellent book is well worth reading to protect yourself and your company from the many risks associated with the use of social media.

Highly Recommended!

CFH

Note: I was provided with a review copy of this book by the author, but that in no way influences my rating or comments.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive guide to social media law for the layman August 13, 2012

By Ben Rothke

Format:Paperback

In the documentary Scared Straight! a group of inmates terrify young offenders in an attempt to "scare them straight"" (hence the film's title) so that those teenagers will avoid prison life. A 2002 meta-analysis of the results of a number of scared straight and similar intervention programs found that they actively increased crime rates, leading to higher re-offense rates than in control groups that did not receive the intervention.

For those considering the use of social media in their business, it is quite easy to read Navigating Social Media Legal Risks: Safeguarding Your Business as a scared straight type of reference. Author Robert McHale provides so many legal horror stories, that most people would simply be too afraid of the legal and regulatory risks to every consider using social media.

But the reality is that social media is becoming required for nearly every business. With that, Navigating Social Media Legal Risks, author and attorney Robert McHale, with Eric Garulay, provide a fascinating and invaluable reference to any organization that wants to use social media, and not violate any of the myriad state, federal and international laws and regulations.

Social media makes it relatively easy for organizations to find and retain customers and increase sales, amongst many other benefits. At the same time, it can expose an organization to significant and highly-expensive legal risks and issues, and find themselves at the receiving end of a subpoena.

The books 12 chapters take a look at various aspects of social media and details how to use them in a legal and judicious manner.

In chapter 1, the book details social media promotions law around contests and sweepstakes. People often use the terms contest and sweepstake interchangeably, but the words have very different meanings. There are various contests and sweepstakes laws that must be dealt with before these promotions can commence. Often web sites will combines elements of contests and sweepstakes, include prizes, chances and considerations, which in turn make it a lottery. The issue is that it is illegal for most entities to create a lottery. So if not done correctly, a simple contest can turn into a costly legal mess.

Chapter 2 deals with online endorsements and testimonials. Any company that will use online endorsements and testimonials in their advertising must ensure that they are following all truth in advertising laws. The book details numerous areas where regulators have launched investigations and taken enforcement actions against violators. The book notes that one rogue blogger will not likely trigger a law enforcement action if your company has a reasonable training and monitoring program in place.

Chapter 5 shows how to manage the legal risks of UGC (user-generated content). UGC can drive significant amounts of traffic to a web site, but also creates legal risks.

Organizations can find protection from UGC via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). But those firms that want to enjoy the protections of the DMCA and CDA are required to fully comply with a very detailed set of legal requirements, leaving them very little room for error. The chapter details how to avoid those errors.

The book has scores of examples of things many readers may not have thought about. For example, chapter 8 writes of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). The purpose of the ACPA is to protect consumers and American businesses and provide clarity in the law for trademark owners by prohibiting the bad-faith and abusive registration of distinctive marks as Internet domain names with the intent to profit from the goodwill associated with such marks-a practice commonly referred to as 'cybersquatting.

Yet what about the post-domain path of a URL, which is everything after the domain name. Of which question is, are post-domain path names protected under the ACPA? For example, is the post-domain path of twitter.com/Boeing owned by Boeing or simply the person who registered it first? The courts are grappling with that and similar questions.

In chapter 9, the authors detail the need for designing a geolocation data security plan. This is particularly important for firms that handle consumer's geolocation data. Such a plan is particularly important given that the tracking, storage and sharing of precise geolocation information is becoming increasingly subject to legal and regulatory requirements..

The book concludes with 10 social media lessons that details some noteworthy social media business entanglements and the lessons that businesses must learn from them. A few of these include: your Twitter hashtag can be used against your, do not pay for or use false endorsements and other invaluable lessons. The advice in these 10 tips alone are worth the price of the book.

Each chapter ends with detailed tactical lists of do's and dont's around the specific topic.

The book should be required reading for every organization. Even those firms that have completely rejected any form of corporate social media interaction can still be held liable for actions of their employees. So such firms can't simply bury their head in the sand.

At $30-, Navigating Social Media Legal Risks: Safeguarding Your Business is the cheapest legal advice you can get, and is worth every penny. If you are looking for crystal clear and detailed advice on social media law, you won't find a better book.

The world of social media is fraught with legal danger which can be quite expensive and embarrassing to recover from. Navigating Social Media Legal Risks: Safeguarding Your Business lives up to its title, and provides an outstanding path to navigate the dangerous waters of social media.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, thorough and easy to read. June 20, 2012

By Barbara Gavin

Format:Paperback

Finally! A well researched and documented book that enables you to understand the implications of what you, your company and your users can and should do on all the social media platforms.
If you have been trying to walk a fine line in terms of branding, or contests, or user generated content, or pre-employment research - this is the book that will let you know what might get you in trouble.
The writing in this book is accessible and designed for a marketing professional (as opposed to a legal professional), but its extensive appendices provide all the references a lawyer will demand. "Navigationg Social Media Legal Risks" is the definitive guide for marketing and community managers as well as a great place to start for corporate legal staff.