I subscribe to Tech Republic emails, mainly for work. Anyway, one of the topics that I get emails about are about employment and HR issues.

In today’s email, they were talking about how employers could be held liable for making employment decisions based on MySpace profiles. In the discussion forum about the topic, people were arguing for both sides.

One camp was arguing that information posted in the public domain, such as MySpace and Facebook are fair game for employers. The other camp, was arguing that while it may be fair game, it’s not legal for employers to discriminate against you based on information posted on social networking sites.

The crux of the argument went that if a potential employer went to your MySpace profile and found out that you’re gay, or black, or have a certain political view, or are married, or are not married and then used that information to decide whether or not to hire you, regardless of your professional qualifications, is that legal? The argument is not really about whether or not you’re a member of a protected group, but whether or not it’s legal for an employer to not hire you based on this information…

My 2 cents to about it, was simply that you should be mindful about what you say and do online, since everything that you say and do can and will be used against you at some point.

I also asked, if you’re an astrophysicist, applying for an astrophysics job at Nasa, but also happen to be a Vietnamese midget hooker and have a MySpace profile where you advertise your side business. Let’s say that Nasa finds your profile. Does Nasa have a legitimate concern about the potential effect of your side business on your ability to perform your job at Nasa?

• How do you prove that you didn’t get hired because you’re of Vietnamese ancestry and the hiring manager served in the Vietnam war and has a thing against Vietmanese people?
• That you didn’t get hired because you’re a hooker?
• Or that because of the site, they knew to ask certain questions and it turns out you were let go from your previous employer because you were servicing customers in the cafeteria?
• Even better, how can Nasa prove that it really was you that created the profile, and not an angry ex-spouse or ex-significant other?

Most of the HR people were saying that they’d only consider information on the resume and information obtained from regular background search methods. I think that’s some CYA, but what do I know. What do you y’all think about this?