Who owns your LinkedIn contacts?

Using social media in the professional space may be popular but legally you may not own your contacts, warns Andrea Ward

Many firms commonly include a restrictive covenant in employment contracts to prevent partners and employees taking contact information for colleagues, clients and suppliers with them when they leave the organisation. Accountants may not realise that their LinkedIn contacts could fall into this category. There have been a couple of cases in the UK courts, but this is an unclear area and many employers are now including LinkedIn networks as part of the restrictive covenant.

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