[lazide]

Really, which laws are those?

The only ones I’m aware of would be trade secret laws, but they’re dubiously applicable to bare customer contact lists.

You can make contractual restrictions of course (company property), but good luck being able to prove they actually took it unless they’re really dumb. Merely contacting all, or many, customers for instance wouldn’t prove it.

Being able to show they work for competitor x is easy, however, as is showing they’re pursuing customers in the same space.

[jahewson]

lol, no. Confidential business information is an area heavily protected by law. Customer lists are the canonical example.

It’s much easier to win this kind of civil suit than a criminal case. The court can absolutely crush a business that is founded in this manner to compensate the former employer.

[lazide]

Then surely you’ll have no issues providing a cite of the relevant criminal code?

[PeterisP]

Criminal code is specific to jurisdiction, in California this would probably be the most relevant section - https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-499c.html . Whether a customer list is a trade secret depends on a bunch of factors in that state's (or countries) trade secret laws (the penal code is just a fraction of them) but in general a mere list of names and telephone numbers likely will not qualify, but a list that includes their buying habits or pricing of current contracts likely will.

[lazide]

Yeah no.

From your link ‘9) “Trade secret” means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process, that:

(A) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to the public or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and

(B) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.’

Pretty hard to imagine a customer list meeting any of those criteria.

[Bjartr]

A customer list can absolutely be reasonably considered to be information with actual and potential value from not being generally known to other persons (competitors) who would obtain economic value from it's disclosure.

So long as you make a reasonable effort to keep it from being public knowledge, it meets the criteria you quoted.

[lazide]

Thanks for reading the ref!

In most court cases I’ve seen about this, it isn’t enough to keep it from being public.

It has to be protected from employees to the degree necessary to keep it a secret. It’s why all the song and dance around the ‘secret ingredients’ in KFC/Pepsi/Coke ‘secret recipes’ (that and marketing). If it was common knowledge at the company, even if it wasn’t public knowledge, they couldn’t use the trade secrets acts to prosecute offenders.

If everyone at the company knows who is on the customer list, including folks who don’t have a privileged need to know it, it isn’t a secret. It just isn’t public knowledge. That still means it isn’t eligible for trade secret protection.

So while yes, it’s possible - if they do that - it’s not at all common with how the information is protected in my experience, and it would be very difficult to actually prosecute anyone under the trade secrets laws because of it.

Civil lawsuit? Different burden of proof, different calculus. Tort law is about being compensated for a loss or injury, after all, and there is no requirement that such loss or injury have been from a criminal act.

[jahewson]

I think you missed the “civil suit” part. Common law business torts are not found in statute.

[lazide]

No, I didn’t miss it. You’re moving the goalposts.

That something is a civil tort doesn’t mean it’s a criminal offense (what is generally referred to as ‘illegal’). Trade secret theft is illegal.

But trade secrets have a specific definition which can pretty much never plausibly include a list of customers.

[JackFr]

Then why didn't Dunder Mifflin sue the Michael Scott Paper Company?

[lovich]

Assuming you were asking seriously, its a comedy show that was not trying to accurately portray how businesses run.

[JackFr]

Really?

[lovich]

Well I guess that’s what I get for giving you the benefit of the doubt

[dpkirchner]

Because they didn't reach out to the very real lawyers at Boston Legal.