When one employer tried to pry into prospective employees’ use of the Internet, the exercise didn’t play well when the public got wind of it. On its employment application, the city of Bozeman, MT, included the following entry:
“Please list any and all current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”
Translation: If there are any embarrassing details about you on the Internet, we want to see the stuff.
Alas, the city’s leap into the Digital Age was not to be. When word of the new employment requirement got around, Bozeman officials took all sorts of flak for “trampling civil liberties” and “snooping on citizens.” Residents, the American Civil Liberties Union and a few outraged politicians got into the act.
A few days later, an embarrassed City Commission chopped the policy, saying, “We apologize for wandering down a road that violated basic rights of our citizens.”
The obvious moral of the story: Employers who ask for private Web info are also asking for trouble.
