In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we explore the challenges that arise when employers and employees battle over work-related social media accounts; we discuss a new litigation trend in which content owners are focusing on individual P2P users to enforce their rights, despite potential First Amendment hurdles; we report on the FTC’s crackdown on so-called “history sniffing”; we examine how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act may or may not fully protect website operators from trademark-related claims; we review a recent FCC ruling on whether opt-out confirmation text messages violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act; we highlight constitutional challenges to how public entities moderate their social media pages; we summarize a recent order requiring Twitter to continue to provide PeopleBrowsr with access to Twitter’s “Firehose”; and we recap major events from 2012 that have had a substantial impact on the law of social media.

All this, plus a collection of eye-opening numbers on the use of social media in 2012.

In This Issue:

Employers and Employees Battle Over Social Media Accounts; Anonymous P2P User’s Motion to Quash Subpoena Denied; FTC Snuffs Out Online “History Sniffing”; Socially Aware Looks Back: The Social Media Law Year in Review; AdWords Decision Highlights Contours of CDA Section 230 Safe Harbor; FCC Rules That Opt-Out Confirmation Text Messages Do Not Violate TCPA; Facebook ’em, Danno: Is the Hawaii 5-0's Facebook Wall A Public Forum?; and PeopleBrowsr Wins Round One Against Twitter.