Social Networks - not so private after all.

Companies are now tracking down their current or potential employees via Myspace, Facebook or any other social networking website in order to see whether they are demonstrating behavior that is acceptable ... is this right?

I believe not. My personal opinion is that this is a violation of privacy on behalf of the corporation. If this employee has committed any sort of serious crime or misdemeanor, Human Resources will be able to report that. Now, I am not one to drink, smoke or do something that I may regret or perhaps not even remember the day after, but I do not judge those who do. Everyone is just trying to have a good time; whatever their definition of a "good time" is and whatever they do in order to have a good time is nobody's business but theirs and the ones who they chose to spend their time with. Whether or they choose to publish pictures of themselves having a "good time" on the net should not be a problem as long as it is not affecting the corporation they work for.

I believe that companies should keep out of their employees' personal lives. As long as they are satisfied with the workers performance and as this employee is not sabotaging or misrepresenting the company in some way, everything should be fine.