Social media – encompassing web-based and mobile interactive technologies, including blogs, photo sharing, forums, and social networking, using various platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and YouTube – is easily available, constantly evolving, and increasingly pervasive.

Recent lawsuits highlight the challenges in protecting a company’s intellectual property, trade secrets, proprietary information, and business assets – and even defining what they are – as employers welcome these new technologies.

The cases also draw attention to the importance of prudence, equity, and fair play, which, though elusive to define or to quantify, often take a front seat in the courtroom.