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Notes -
I mean I think there’s room for reform here. There are jobs where you do have substantial access to proprietary information, client data, and strategic planning. These jobs I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have non-compete clauses for. And along the same time if your job is to be the public facing representative of your company, I think it reasonable to expect that they keep their public profiles business friendly. But in both cases I think it should be on the business to show that the person’s role is one that requires restrictions. If they can’t show that the job has significant reach into proprietary or strategic information that would cause harm if it became widely known, then they shouldn’t get to restrict the employee. If the person isn’t the public face of the company, the company shouldn’t be able to restrict free expression of legal ideas online. To me, the issue is a balancing act between the rights of the employees to live as they please and to seek opportunities in the market against the company’s need to protect its data and strategic interests.
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