Data Protection And The Business Use Of Social Networks

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Law - Civil / Private / Trade / Anti Trust Law / Business Law, grade: 2,0, University of applied sciences, Munich, language: English, abstract: This assignment provides an overview of the complexity of data protection and the usage of social networks that US-based companies have to deal with. The world wide web has brought many new opportunities for companies to globalize, expand and to make work processes paperless.

Looking at the findings conducted for data protection laws it is a big surprise that the US has not implemented a federal data protection act, even though data protection and privacy is seen as a human right for most economically strong countries including Canada and Europe. Thus, the US data protection acts are split into several industries and works in a ¿patchwork system¿. This system made it more difficult for the US to trade with the European Union before both parties agreed on an EU-US Privacy Shield to protect European customer data. Secondly, this assignment identifies that Social Networks should not be included in the recruitment process of an employer but can be used as a platform for employees to discuss work processes or for the companies to promote its products and services. This is a legal procedure as long as the content posted is not illegal, obscene, incorrect, defamatory or invasive of privacy. The acceptance and openness for the US citizens to freely communicate online is a consequence of Americas ¿free speech¿ philosophy. Additionally, a Business providing its own social network in form of a blog, content community or social media website is not held liable for the content that is being posted by users, however, the service provider has to have a system in place to be able to delete illegal content.