Athletes and other high profile individuals are constant targets of scams offline and on social media. Earlier this year, Manti Te'o, then a student-athlete with Notre Dame was the target of an elaborate catfishing scheme that almost destroyed his NFL career before he was even drafted. Manti Te'o is not alone in being targeted by con artists who utilize electronic communications. The Miami Heat's Chris Andersen was also recently entangled in a digital scheme that almost destroyed his NBA career and personal life.
These incidents are the tip of the iceberg. I have counseled multiple high profile individuals who have been the target of these scams. Fortunately for most of my clients, they usually contact me before these issues become public knowledge. When I provide services to professional athletes, professional sports teams, college athletic departments, Fortune 500 executives, and other high profile clients, I discuss these type of issues and the importance of limiting one's digital footprint. Unless one is able to authenticate the person with whom they are texting with and/or sending emails/social media messages with I do not recommend communicating with them.
The bottom line is that some people are putting their guard because a growing number of self-styled social media consultants are advocating that high profile individuals should focus on increasing one's social media usage to build one's personal brand and/or their school and/or corporate brand. My philosophy is different. It is about protecting the individual, school, corporation, etc... first. Brand building is a long process that takes years of hard work and a handful of Tweets or Facebook posts won't do it despite what some self-styled social media consultants advocate.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Social Media Sports Expert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media Sports Expert. Show all posts
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
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 $100 million dollars. For proof, just review the Penn State emails regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter. Does a school want to be on the hook for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability because it was utilizing a social media monitoring service to track personal digital accounts?
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Some social media monitoring companies may claim they are a "leader" in social media monitoring and/or in "educating" student-athletes. Does the NSA claim they are monitoring personal digital accounts to educate? No. Therefore, any claim by Varsity Monitor, UDiligence, Fieldhouse Media, etc...that they are monitoring to "educate" is absolute *&%%&*$%.
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.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Are UDiligence and Varsity Monitor advising NCAA schools to violate the Stored Communications Act?
Over the past couple of years, companies with names like UDiligence and Varsity Monitor have been created to monitor the digital activity of student-athletes. At first glance it may seem like a good idea to require students to provide access to password protected social media content. However, once you understand what this means from a legal and financial perspective you may realize that this is a Pandora's Box that should not be opened.
UDiligence and Varsity Monitor appear to prey on the fears of college athletic departments even though the NCAA recently ruled that schools do not have a duty to monitor password protected social media content. Instead of helping NCAA athletic departments, these services may be exacerbating the situation because it appears they may be encouraging colleges to create new legal duties and violate the constitutional rights of their students along with multiple federal and state laws.
Within the past couple of weeks, both UDiligence and Varsity Monitor have taken down their client lists from their websites. Have the schools pressured them to do so? Or, did both of these companies take down their client lists because the media has started to ask in-depth questions about their services?
Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, 2009 WL 3128420 (D.N.J. 2009), is a case that appears analogous to the situation where schools are "requesting" that their student-athletes provide access to their password protected digital/social media accounts. In Pietrylo, an employee "did not feel free" to deny her boss access to a password protected MySpace account. The jury found that the employer violated the Stored Communications Act and the case was upheld on appeal. Therefore, since students "may not feel free" to deny their athletic departments and/or third parties access to their password protected social media accounts these services may be advising schools to violate the Stored Communications Act.
Since requesting employees to provide access to their password protected social media accounts has been found to violate the Stored Communications Act, it may also violate the Stored Communications Act for NCAA schools to "request" access to their students' password protected social media accounts. Requiring public school students to download applications and/or Facebook Friend university employees or agents may also violate the 1st and 4th Amendments along with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and multiple other federal and state laws.
The bottom line is that schools that engage UDiligence or Varsity Monitor may be paying $10,000 plus dollars per year for a service that may be creating more problems than it solves.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at http://shearlaw.com/attorney_profile.
Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
UDiligence and Varsity Monitor appear to prey on the fears of college athletic departments even though the NCAA recently ruled that schools do not have a duty to monitor password protected social media content. Instead of helping NCAA athletic departments, these services may be exacerbating the situation because it appears they may be encouraging colleges to create new legal duties and violate the constitutional rights of their students along with multiple federal and state laws.
Within the past couple of weeks, both UDiligence and Varsity Monitor have taken down their client lists from their websites. Have the schools pressured them to do so? Or, did both of these companies take down their client lists because the media has started to ask in-depth questions about their services?
Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, 2009 WL 3128420 (D.N.J. 2009), is a case that appears analogous to the situation where schools are "requesting" that their student-athletes provide access to their password protected digital/social media accounts. In Pietrylo, an employee "did not feel free" to deny her boss access to a password protected MySpace account. The jury found that the employer violated the Stored Communications Act and the case was upheld on appeal. Therefore, since students "may not feel free" to deny their athletic departments and/or third parties access to their password protected social media accounts these services may be advising schools to violate the Stored Communications Act.
Since requesting employees to provide access to their password protected social media accounts has been found to violate the Stored Communications Act, it may also violate the Stored Communications Act for NCAA schools to "request" access to their students' password protected social media accounts. Requiring public school students to download applications and/or Facebook Friend university employees or agents may also violate the 1st and 4th Amendments along with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and multiple other federal and state laws.
The bottom line is that schools that engage UDiligence or Varsity Monitor may be paying $10,000 plus dollars per year for a service that may be creating more problems than it solves.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at http://shearlaw.com/attorney_profile.
Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
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