WOW! Platypus, Mookie, August and I all agree on this issue.

Is it December 2012 already????

I can understand the desire of a company HR person to check out the candidate fully - after all, if your a bank and your prospect has a bunch of pictures of himself at a casino with captions complaining of how he just lost his shirt, it could indicate that he might not be the best to control money unsupervised. Someone always posting how drunk they are may not be the best person to run the liquor store. It goes to the desire to get more insight regarding the person's character.

However, while I understand the desire - that doesn't make it right or ethical. Do I have a problem with the question being asked? Not really. The problem is one of legality. Is it discrimination to refuse to consider an applicant that refuses to provide such data? The real legal question is that if someone posts something on the interwebz, is it considered private? I mean, the net isn't exactly a private place by its nature.

Remember - sites like facebook didn't always have "privacy settings" - if you posted it - it was "out there". If you post and use privacy settings, your abrogating (aka trusting another party) the responsibility to make sure such data you want hidden really is. As most such sites are not service providers for pay, can a "consumer" claim a right to privacy has been breached? I could go on and on regarding the legal quagmire.

Its wrong, its unethical if its a condition of consideration - but its not illegal for them to ask. They still should not do so. On that I think we can all agree.

Since it is not legally enforceable, I had no problems signing it.

What are they going to do, not give me severance pay if I quit. :har:

*bump*

Another victory for corporate America:
IL Follows Suit: Employers Right To Ask For Social Media Passwords Codified Into Law

This is beyond ridiculous: it is illegal for an employer in the US to ask about a candidate's religion (rightly so), but asking for information which could contain much more intimate details is ok? :nope:

Another big legal problem I see there, is that the employer could obtain private details about third parties who sent infos meant only for the eyes of the job candidate.

*bump* indeed

Ditto. I don't do facebook or anything like it.


And my response would be, "No sir, I don't have a facebook account. I've worked in the internet security field for 13 years, and in my professional opinion, posting real world personal information about oneself on the internet, is not the wisest of choices one could make."

I have a FB account but scrubbed out any personal data.
My youngest brother posted all kinds of personal photos of me on his album and last I spoke with him, I asked him to remove them all.
SHTAKO! I better go check and see if he did.

. Instead of a picture of me on my homepage, there is an Imperial storm trooper using an ATM.

If a prospective employer would ask about it, my reply would be...
"All us clones look the same." Password? Go fish. It's against the FB TOS to give out that information and I refuse to expose myself to litigation. Unless of course you're going to promise me a job making what the CMFIC is making. I'll take that in writing please. Notarized.:up: