Enjoining Damaging Web Posts by Former Employees Comes at a Steep Price
Our last blog entry discussed the First Amendment shield that covers current and former employees who use anonymous or pseudonymous Internet postings to trash their employers. Today’s cautionary tale highlights the practical challenges employers face in court even when a current or former employee posts confidential records on the Web in violation of confidentiality agreements and laws.
Bank Julius Baer & Co., a Cayman Island subsidiary of a Swiss bank, fired a disgruntled vice president. On her way out, she took confidential documents she believed show that her former employer engaged in unlawful conduct. The next day, she posted those documents on a public website devoted to leaking confidential documents.
Instead of pursuing the disgruntled vice president, the Bank filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the leaking website, Wikileaks.org, and its domain name registrar, Dynadot. The Wikileaks website enables users to anonymously publish submissions, including alleged confidential corporate and government documents. The site aims to be an “untraceable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.” The site runs on modified MediaWiki software, similar to the software that runs Wikipedia.
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