Facebook Responds to Employee Password Flap [Followup, Poll]

Last week I told you about what's turning into a bit of a trend, where some potential employers are asking people interviewing for jobs for their Facebook log in information. A few days ago, Facebook responded.

Before we get to that though, I wanted to share the poll results with you: as of this writing, 89% of our nearly 100 respondents said "No", they would not give a prospective employer their username and password in order to get a job (If you haven't voted yet, I'll repost the poll at the end of the article).

Now, on to Facebook's response. First, they pointed out that giving out your password is actually a violation of their Terms of Service (you know, those long documents filled with legalese that you always just click "Agree" on without actually reading). In addition to breaking your agreement with Facebook, possible employers could also be treading on dangerous employment law territory. Here's how Facebook explained it:

...it also may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating. For example, if an employer sees on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don't hire that person.

So, not only does the practice violate the Facebook TOS, but it could also cause businesses to tread on shaky legal ground. For more on the story, head over to Gizmodo.

If you didn't get a chance to vote on last week's poll, you can still register your opinion below, and feel free to leave a comment in the comments section too!