Twitter Usage Raises Corporate Legal Questions

Some of America’s biggest companies are turning to Twitter as a vehicle for getting their corporate messages out to the public. But along with that comes concerns of SEC violations and other legal hang-ups.

The Wall Street Journal highlights examples in a new report. Lawyers for online auction giant eBay are requiring company blogger Richard Brewer-Hay to include disclaimers on his Twitter blogs. They are concerned that, without them, his posts about quarterly earnings, conferences and more could run afoul of SEC regulations. A Johnson & Johnson executive just last week filed a report via Twitter on the company’s annual meeting.

The fact is that social networking for large companies is new territory. The SEC allows companies to dole out certain info about themselves without violating any regulations, but to what extent is still murky.

One big name in the tech world – Intel – plans to do a Q&A with shareholders and hold a vote via the Web next month, but won’t use Twitter to facilitate it do to concerns over drawing the SEC’s ire and criticism from the public, according to an Intel executive in a Wall Street Journal interview.