IM isn't safe.jpg
the IM snag

Yahoo has filed suit against a group of seven former employees for stealing trade secrets, drawing heavily from archived Yahoo instant-messaging conversations between the group.

Duh, as TechDirt notes, if you’re going to plot a departure from Yahoo, you might want to just bite the bullet and use enemy tools such as Google Talk or something.

The group of seven discussed their plans on IM as they planned their departure to a wireless content company in San Francisco, MForma, according to the suit. CNET reports:

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in a Santa Clara County state court, the group of seven former Yahoo employees copied large amounts of confidential business and technical data when they left the Web portal company, and brought it to use in their new positions at MForma.

In a statement, MForma Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Sacks said Yahoo “deserves the gold medal for hypocrisy,” noting that the Web company had itself been recently sued on trade secrets grounds by Nuance Communications, after hiring a team of that company’s employees.

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