SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 6, 2006) – Web blogs are booming, but the latest survey conducted by the Employment Law Alliance is reporting that while millions of workers – perhaps as many as 5% of the American work force -- are maintaining the online personal diaries, only about 15% of employers have specific policies addressing work-related blogging.

Stephen J. Hirschfeld, the CEO of the ELA and a partner in the California-based labor and employment firm of Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld & Kraemer, LLP, says, “Work-related blogging was once thought to be benign, but it is now one of the hottest, and most complex and far-ranging issues in the workplace.”

Hirschfeld says blog-related issues cover a broad spectrum well beyond concerns by employers over the web-posting of company secrets. “For example, can the employer regulate off-duty blogging because they believe the content injures the company’s reputation, is embarrassing to a company, or disparages a company’s products, management or customers? There is intense debate over blogs, but no debate over the need to have clear blogging policies,” he adds. The practice of firing a worker for what is deemed inappropriate blogging, notes Hirschfeld, even has its own name, doocing (named for a fired worker who maintains the www.dooce.com website).

Hirschfeld said the telephone poll of 1,000 adults, with a confidence interval of +/- 4%, was conducted over the weekend of January 22, 2006. Besides finding that 5% of American workers maintain personal blogs and that only 15% of their employers have a policy directly addressing blogging activities, it also revealed that:

• 59% of employees believe employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate workers who post confidential or proprietary information concerning the employer
• 55% think employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate employees who post damaging, embarrassing, negative information about the employer
• 23% support fellow workers being free to post criticism or satire about employers, co-workers, supervisors, customers, or clients without fear of discipline

Of the employees polled who work for a company with a blogging policy:

• 62% say the policy prohibits posting any employer-related information
• 60% say the policy discourages employees from criticizing or making negative comments against the employer
• 58% say the regulations deal with all blogging regardless of content.

Dr. Ted Reed, President of the Reed Group, LLC, a Philadelphia-based research firm and Survey Director for ELA, says the poll is indicative of a steady growth in adult blogging. A 2003 national survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that approximately 2% of American adults who used the Internet maintained a blog. “Based on our current research, we can have as many as 10 million bloggers among the American workforce.”

View the charts by clicking file attachment link below.