Technology, Law, and the Workplace: Week in Review

The Gray Plant Mooty attorneys behind The Modern Workplace are devoted to exploring current issues in employment and labor law. We are particularly interested in “The Next Big Thing,” our shorthand for the many ways that technology is revolutionizing both the world we live in and the workplace. Each week, we will provide a summary of interesting news and blogs involving technology and law, especially the law of the workplace. This week marks the first of our “TNBT: Week in Review” features on The Modern Workplace.

The buzz this week in the world of technology is “Watson,” the IBM computer that competed on ‘Jeopardy!’ this week. He mopped the floor with his human competition, generating quite a stir about the amazing advances that have been made in the field of artificial intelligence. While autonomous robots are not replacing humans in the workplace just yet, the General Counsel of IBM reports that Watson could do legal research. I for one welcome our new computer overlords.

Technology in the Workplace

• Meka Robot Works Well With Others—and Is Coming to Steal Your Job (Fast Company)
• Facebook Business Etiquette: Why You Shouldn’t Friend Your Boss (CBS Money Watch)
• Teacher suspended for blogging about her students…still blogging! (The Employer Handbook and ABA Journal)
• How social media is making companies rethink recruiting (SmartBlog on Social Media)
• Who owns an employee’s LinkedIn contacts? (Grunted Employees)
• Social Pro Files: Every employee in your company can have a role in social media (SmartBlog on Social Media)
• More fallout from the NLRB ‘Facebook Firing’ settlement (PC World, BNET)

Technology and the Law More Generally

• Decentralizing the Internet So Big Brother Can’t Find You (NY Times)
• WikiLeaks Allies Fight Order on Twitter Data (NY Times)
• Juror’s Facebook Posting During Gang Trial Lead to Legal Morass & Suit Against Judge (Courthouse News Service)
• Senator Al Franken to chair new subcommittee on privacy, technology, and the law (Tech.MN, Privacy & Information Security Law Blog)
• U.S. Policy to Address Internet Freedom (NY Times)
• Internet Retailer Limits Negative Online Reviews in Its Terms and Conditions (ABA Journal)
• Israeli National Labor Court Severely Restricts Employee Monitoring (Privacy & Information Security Law Blog)

Technology News

• Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America (NY Times)
• Google Search Results Get More Social (Bits, Fast Company)
• Computer Wins ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, It’s Not (NY Times)
• Imagining a World of Total Connectedness, and Its Consequences (NY Times)
• Twitter, Translations, and the New Geopolitics (Fast Company)
• Exactly What Role Did Social Media Play in the Egyptian Revolution? (Fast Company)
• Google’s E-Valentine Suits Geeks in Love and Creeps Alike (Fast Company)
• Progress in Artificial Intelligence Brings Wonders and Fears (NY Times)
• Hackers Go After the Smartphone (NY Times)
• Prime Times for Smartphone Use (NY Times)