After Hoder’s blog was held against him by American Immigration, Canadian Brent Ashley holds it against him in a “Canada: Blog it or leave it!” sort of way.

Michael O’Connor Clarke blogs a paper by Howard Levitt on how Canadian employment law applies to blogging. For example:

Whereas internet use and email use from a personal email account which is done after work hours on a personal computer may not form the basis of a harassment claim because of the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists, because a blog is in the public domain, harassing blog entries made on a person computer, outside of company time, and not using company resources, may still have the potential to result in disciplinary action because they have the potential to create a hostile work environment as there is greater potential that co-workers and management will encounter the harassing material.

Howard isn’t necessarily recommending this; he’s trying to anticipate how court decisions might go. His recommended (and generally quite reasonable) corporate policy on blogging, however, seems to apply also to blogs created or viewed at home, on one’s own time, and includes a prohibition on viewing blogs that contain “inappropriate or offensive material.” Does he really think that that’s a reasonable or enforceable proposal? Or am I misunderstanding him? [Tags: hoder canada MichaelOConnorClarke BrentAshley]

Categories: blogs dw