Blog with caution, or you might get 'dooced'

By ROBERT RODRIGUEZ
The Fresno Bee

FRESNO, Calif. -- Ellen Simonetti, a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant, didn't think anyone would pay attention to the flirty photos posted on her blog.

After all, she was fully-clothed and didn't identify the airline.

She was wrong.

Her employer considered the pictures "inappropriate" and suspended the eight-year airline employee.

Simonetti, 31, who calls herself Queen of the Sky in her blog, was permanently grounded when the airline fired her in the fall of 2004. She hasn't worked for an airline since.

"I never expected anything like this to happen," Simonetti said from her Austin, Texas, home. "I regret losing my career and my livelihood. I've been on television and in newspapers, but the truth is nothing really good has come out of this. I feel like my life is a reality TV show."

Simonetti's story, soon to be told in a book, is a cautionary tale of life in a new technological era.

With the number of blogs approaching 25 million, anyone with a computer -- bosses included -- can now peek into a person's private life via his or her Internet diaries or personal Web pages. But the issue remains controversial. While some companies have enacted policies about blogs that in some cases ban employees from mentioning their employer, executives of other firms prefer to stay out of the fray.

Although most blogs are nothing more than Internet diaries used for social networking and keeping in touch with friends and family, not all are mundane.

For those who knowingly or unknowingly push the blog boundaries, the results can be damaging. There's even a new term for people who get fired from their jobs because of blogging: It's called "dooced."

Privacy experts and some lawyers believe the uproar over high profile cases such as Simonetti's is an overreaction.

"There are literally millions of blogs out there that aren't getting any attention," said Paula Brantner, program director for Workplace Fairness in Silver Spring, Md. "What this issue comes down to is what are you blogging about, who is reading it and what kind of attention are you drawing to it?"

Brantner said she believes most employers don't care what their employees do in their private lives as long as it is not illegal or affects their jobs.

Not everyone agrees.

A recent survey by the Employment Law Alliance in San Francisco found that 15% of employers have blog policies that include banning use of a company's name or making disparaging remarks about a company.

But the issue of blogging and the workplace reaches beyond bad-mouthing your boss. It raises the question of whether it's appropriate for employers to view blogs and even use them in evaluating job candidates.

San Francisco attorney Stephen Hirschfeld said many employers have already crossed that bridge.

He said he believes once information is posted on the Internet for the world to see, it stops being private.

"Sophisticated companies are doing what they can to do an active background check that's within the boundaries of the law," said Hirschfeld, a partner in the San Francisco law firm of Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld & Kraemer.

"And the Internet is fair game. I tell clients, 'Trust your instincts. If people are blogging about something that is just flat out bizarre or weird, think about it. What you see may be what you get."'

Officials at several Fresno companies were divided over the issue. Some said they peruse blogs of potential job candidates, while others said they are skittish about scrolling through someone's Internet diary.

"It just makes me feel uncomfortable," said Alicia Andrade-Owen, director of career resources at Fresno Pacific University.

Cathy Frost of Bennett Frost Personnel Services in Fresno said she has mixed feelings about the issue. Although she has not read any of her employees' blogs -- she doesn't even know whether anybody has one -- she said she might consider it, if trying to fill a key position in her company.

"It is a tough issue," Frost said. "We are dealing with a whole new area of reference checking that we never had available before."

At PrideStaff, a Fresno-based staffing company, Jane Blocker, chief operating officer, is a believer in blog checking.

Blocker said she uses several Internet search engines to find out more information about job candidates. As a veteran executive recruiter, she said she has learned not to completely trust resumes.

"It is not that people lie. Sometimes they just make mistakes," Blocker said. "What I am looking for is any information that might be useful to me."

Blocker said the company is currently debating a blogging policy for itself. As a franchised company, she said it wants to protect its image and reputation.

"It is something the senior managers have been talking about," she said. "How do you deal with the information that is being shared about your company?"

Attorneys say employers can go too far in trying to regulating what an employee does on his or her own time.

"I think there is a knee-jerk reaction going on among some employers right now," said Shelline Bennett, managing partner of Leibert Cassidy Whitmore in Fresno. "I have seen two- and three-page blogging policies, some that say if you mention the name of the company you will be subject to immediate termination. In my opinion, the punishment seems out of proportion."

Bennett warned companies to be careful.

She said California law prohibits employers from discriminating in any way against applicants and employees for their lawful off-duty conduct, which might include blogging.

"I think you may start seeing a lot of law firms handling these employee defense cases," Bennett said.

Reading what people post on their blogs doesn't interest Brad Landin, chief operating officer of AbsoluteHire, a Roseville-based background-check company. Landin is interested in objective facts such as court records, academic degrees or department of motor vehicle records.

He said too much boasting goes on in blogs.

"If someone goes out and has two drinks and leaves early from a party, that isn't something your friends are going to get a kick out of," Landin said.

"But if you partied hearty all night long and came home with the alley cats, that's more interesting."

But Landin said he also isn't ruling out reading blogs, if a client wanted it.

"I'd never say absolutely not," he said. "But before we did, I'd have to check with our legal counsel."

Landin knows that as more people use the Internet as another source of communicating information about themselves, the desire for some to read what they post may become greater.

Web sites such as myspace.com have elevated the popularity and ease of blogging. The service is free and easy. Within minutes you can post your photo and talk about the events in your life with virtually anyone on the Internet.

And while some bloggers post messages anonymously using screen names, others are not that careful.

"Some people have not fully conceptualized the power of the Internet," said Brantner of Workplace Fairness. "Just because you can type away at will and can broadcast at will, doesn't mean you should do so."

Although Brantner believes that employers should not be prying into the private lives of their employees, she said the practice can be abused by both sides.

"Employees are using their newfound ability to publicly share information that by rights an employer has a legitimate interest in," Brantner said.

"On the other hand, employers are getting more intrusive and not for any other good reason other than they can."

Beyond protecting a company's reputation, business professionals advise those entering the work force to blog with caution.

"You have to begin thinking about your professional image," Blocker said. "You have to think about what you are putting out there."

Kathy Bray, president of Denham Personnel Services, a Fresno staffing company, said she has to remind some young people that something as simple as a quirky answering machine message can give a prospective employer the wrong impression.

And she said she has little sympathy for people who share too much personal information on their blogs.

"I want to tell the bloggers, 'What were you thinking?"' she said.

While no one expects blogs to fade away, bloggers offer some advice.

"Don't put anything on the Internet that you would not want your mom to find out about," said Jarah Euston, founder of Fresnofamous.com, a local Web site.

"If your employer Google-searches you and your myspace page comes up when you're 16, it can be pretty embarrassing. Because even if you think you delete something, it never really goes away.

"And once it is out there, sometimes you can't get it back."