Web of Lies? Investigating potential employees online can hurt your business if you're not careful.

Question: I'm thinking about hiring my first employee and am looking at three very well-qualified candidates. Is there anything legally wrong with researching each candidate on the web and seeing what I can find out about their backgrounds?

Answer: The short answer is no. When someone puts information about themselves on the internet, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. But (and it's a big but), you should be careful when using any information you find about a candidate on the web, for two reasons: The information may be false or misleading, and the information may cause you to discriminate illegally against a candidate.

Let's say you're checking out a candidate and you come up with a blog saying the person has been sued for unpaid child support by two previous spouses. If that information is not 100 percent true and accurate, the candidate may sue the blogger for libel or defamation of character, especially if he can prove you relied on that information when denying him employment. Even though you're not the one defaming the candidate, he will almost certainly drag you into his lawsuit as a material witness.