New Jersey Bans NCAA Social Media Monitoring Companies

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie proclaimed that New Jersey employees have an expectation of privacy in the digital age when he signed A2878 into law earlier today.  New Jersey has joined the growing number of states that are protecting the personal digital privacy of their employees and students.  At least 13 states have enacted similar laws and 36 states along with Congress have introduced bills to protect NCAA schools, students, employers, employees, etc... from companies that are selling social media monitoring legal liability time bombs. 

Some social media monitoring companies may claim they are a "leader" in social media monitoring and/or in "educating" student-athletes.  Does the NSA claim they are monitoring personal digital accounts to educate?  No.  Therefore, any claim by Varsity Monitor, UDiligence, Fieldhouse Media, etc...that they are monitoring to "educate" is absolute *&%%&*$%. 

Varsity Monitor, UDiligence, and Fieldhouse Media each sell social media monitoring services that NCAA schools in at least 13 states may not utilize to track the personal digital accounts of their coaches and/or student-athletes.  Schools deploying the social media monitoring services of these companies may be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, and/or may be sued for violating their student's first and/or fourth amendment rights, and/or may lose millions of dollars in federal funding.

According to Deadspin, Varsity Monitor may have some troubling ethical and legal problems to address.  The Courier Journal reported that Varsity Monitor's Centrix Social service was caught last year monitoring University of Kentucky student-athletes for using the terms "Arab" or "Muslim" online.  Why did Sam Carnahan, the owner of Varsity Monitor allow this to occur?

According to Time Magazine, UDiligence was monetizing the personal photographs of the student-athletes it was monitoring to advertise its services until it was confronted about this troubling practice.  Unfortunately, UDiligence's founder Kevin Long only removed the offending photos from his UDiligence web site but not another one of his company web sites (I have screen shots if he claims otherwise).  This demonstrates that schools, student-athletes, and sports related entities should think long and hard before trusting any entity that Mr. Long owns or controls.

The most troubling service may be Fieldhouse Media because it appears to be trying to differentiate itself as having less invasive tactics than the other companies.  NCAA athletic departments should not be fooled.  It appears that in order for Fieldhouse Media's social media monitoring service to properly work  student-athletes need to at least authenticate their social media username(s).  Arkansas, California, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and New Mexico have generally banned schools from being able to ask a student to verify this information.

Fieldhouse Media's Kevin DeShazo's business practices appear to raise serious ethical questions.  For example, last year Mr. DeShazo created a press release announcing his social media monitoring service that quoted me without my cooperation.  Did Mr. DeShazo ask for my permission to be quoted in a press release designed to sell his social media monitoring services? No. Why is Mr. DeShazo trying to associate my reputation with a practice that I along with lawyers and risk professional from around the country believe may create tremendous legal and financial risks?  

If you perform due diligence on Mr. DeShazo you may find some issues that warrant further explanation.  For example, according to his publicly available LinkedIn Profile from last year it states that before he started his social media monitoring firm he had no verifiable social media or NCAA compliance/advisory experience.  Interestingly, according to his recent publicly available LinkedIn Profile it now claims that prior to starting his social media monitoring company he was working for a social media marketing firm. If Mr. DeShazo was actually working for a social media marketing company before he started his social media consulting firm why wasn't it listed previously? Why has Mr. DeShazo recently claimed he launched Fieldhouse Media in 2010 (I have screen shots if this is denied) which conflicts with his LinkedIn Profile claims and the information on file with the Oklahoma Secretary of State?

In 2001, George O'Leary, Notre Dame's head football coach resigned five days after being hired because of "inaccuracies" in his published biography.  In other words, Mr. O'Leary was caught intentionally misleading NCAA athletic departments about his background.  After George O'Leary, Jayson Blair was caught creating a web of lies and was terminated from the New York Times, and then James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces" was caught lying to Oprah.   

Anyone that approaches schools to sell services to track personal social media accounts is selling a legal liability time bomb.  If a school hires a social media monitoring firm to track the personal digital content of their students or employees and it misses an indication that there may be a crime committed it may cost the school more than $100 million dollars.  For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter.  Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track personal digital accounts?    

Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.