Twitter Suit Settled Out of Court

A lawsuit involving a Mount Pleasant tech company and a California blogger that could have shaped social media ownership policies across the country has been settled out of court.

The social media and technology community was closely watching the case between PhoneDog.com, the S.C. based tech site, and its former employee Noah Kravitz.

PhoneDog alleged that Kravitz should have turned over the account, Phonedog_Noah, and its 17,000 followers when he left the company in 2010.

Instead, Kravitz changed the name on the account and started tweeting about other topics, and even some PhoneDog competitors.

Under the settlement, Kravitz will maintain sole custody of the account, according to CFO.com. In court, his attorneys had presented documents that seemed to clearly show PhoneDog had agreed to let Kravitz continue using the account and, in fact, asked him to continue occasionally tweeting on its behalf, which he did.

Neither party is releasing more details about the terms of the settlement. Kravitz has said from the outset that the Twitter suit only came after he sued PhoneDog for back pay and advertising revenue.

As social networking grows into a valuable marketing platform, more and more employers encourage employees to tweet and make Facebook posts to promote products and services. But when employees leave, it is unclear who owns the accounts. This case could have set the legal precident for such decisions, many technology watchers believed.

"When I started with PhoneDog there was no Twitter and we didn’t have a YouTube channel," Kravitz said in a statement. "In retrospect, I’m sure we all wish we had been able to foresee what was coming and negotiate specific terms ahead of time. But sometimes in this industry you have to move quickly to seize opportunities."

PhoneDog offers reviews news about the cellular and smartphone industry.

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