Anyway, in the modern era where employees use Facebook, My Space, Twitter and personal blogs frequently, it would be strongly advisable to have a blogging policy.

For instance, at my company, if an employee has a personal blog, we have several requirements that they must agree to as a part of our policy:

• Make it clear to the readers that the views expressed are the employee’s alone and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the company
• Do not disclose any information that is confidential or propriety to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to the company.  Consult the company’s confidentiality policy for guidance about what constitutes confidential information.
• Uphold the company’s value of respect for the individual and avoid making defamatory statements about company employees, clients, partners, affiliates and others, including competitors.
• Be careful not to let blogging interfere with the employee’s job or client commitments.

Of course, this is only if they choose to identify themselves as an employee of ours somewhere in their blog.

I think the answers to all three are yes, although in my mind, the latter can be very dangerous.

Check out this blog post that Porter Wright published through their Employer Law Report.  They discuss a situation where a company terminated a woman’s long-term disability benefits due to some pictures they observed on her Facebook page.

This is a very interesting debate.  You’ll have to decide if Facebook should have come into play or not.  Personally, I have always preached – if you don’t want someone to see it, never put it online!

Click here to read an interesting article by HR Morning on the city of Bozeman’s (Montana) hiring practice – where they do exactly what I just mentioned.

Frankly, I’m not surprised at all by the “outcry” from the HR community regarding Bozeman’s hiring method.

I’m a realist.  When recruiting, of course I Google names and check free web resources – including social networking web sites.  But what I find with Facebook and My Space is that those pages are often private at the request of the member (which is exactly what I think they should be and should remain).

If you’re looking for a job, change your status on those sites to private so I can’t see it.  I really started preaching this to the graduating college seniors who attended my seminars last year.  Yet, this advice is also applicable to most job seekers out there.

I would never give my consent or provide my username and login.  It should be interesting to see where this issue goes from here.