Credit cards don't claim to be currency either, nor does the company accepting it have to worry they'll be able to turn the receivables into cash. Bitcoin, however,is not s liquid so if Dell accepted Bitcoin they could be stuck with a large stash that is not easy to turn into cash. Credit cards also let you make large purchases, depending on your credit limit. A million dollar Bitcoin buy may be much more difficult since the processor is assuming all the risk while giving out cash with no assurance stye Bitcoins will be worth what they paid for them.

However, just because someone infers something from what was not said is in no way a defamatory statement by another since nothing was said. Just because the potential employer may imply that saying nothing is bad that does not mean the person who said nothing intended for them to so do, so arguing that somehow they defamed the former employer by saying nothing would be ridiculous and such a suit would probably be thrown out before right away.

Sure. You can simply say "Our policy is to only verify employment" or " Our policy is to refer all such requests to HR..." which is what many companies do already. Answering the question asked, however, is a very different thing and opens up the potential of a lawsuit.

certainly large companies have more excess employees, after all the are larger and if only 10% of a company's employees are excess then, using your example, one has 45k and the other 5 excess employees. I suspect the percentage is larger at large companies because it is easy to hide employees and hire, rathe than layoff, staff.

What is the right number of employees? It depends; largely on their revenue generating ability.I've worked at companies where if an employee was billable 65% of the time everyone was happy. I've worked projects where I did 20 hours of work and 40 of free time and that was fine because we still had huge margins. Not having the staff to put on projects costs more than keeping them around so they can work high margin jobs. I've worked at big companies and small ones and in defense of big ones is when you need resources to throw at project they have them; whereas small ones often don't.

However, how often are black boxes not recovered? Sure, it would be useful in a few rare cases but does the cost justify it? There is already a load of data that gets transmitted during flight to data centers; and in the case of the missing Malaysia flight that data stopped after a while anyway so how can you be sure in those cases where you don't recover a lack box you'd still have useful data. I have no doubt more and more data will be streamed in the future, but you need to weigh the costs of retrofitting with the benefits.

Uh, Delta has been offering pay as you go internet via wifi for a while now on their US flights. It works just fine. Other airlines probably do the same but I only fly Delta so I can't say for sure.

Several points

1. Signing a poor performance review doesn't necessarily mean the person agrees with it; it is merely acknowledgement of receiving it.

2. Even if the signature is taken to mean agreement that doesn't mean a court could view it the same way. An employee could argue that they were afraid to lose their job and thus signed under duress.

3. Even if you think it isn't subjective that doesn't mean a jury wouldn't. You may believe what you said is factual; however they may not have been always true and thus not a true statement but a subjective one that could be construed as defamatory. You get into the "yes but he/she usually was a poor performer..." and then have to explain why you said they were a poor performer when it wasn't true since they did well sometimes. The follow on is "Maybe you gave them jobs they couldn't do to get rid of them. Is that the case?" What if at some point they got an award? How do you explain that?

My point is not that the employee would win; but that what you say and think is a fact may not be taken that way and thus references can be a real minefield and therefore many company's policy is to simply verify employment.

Those, however, could be open to interpretation. How do you verify they were late? What was your policy and how was it enforced? What is repeatedly? Were your instructions clear? How did you let them know they we not doing what you wanted? Your standards clear and how did yoyo measure them? All of that is subjective to an extent, and thus may or not be considered the truth.

Sure, anyone can file a lawsuit; but if you all you provide is factual information, such as dates of employment, there can be no defamation. When you go beyond that and start saying things that are open to interpretation then you get into trouble; so not saying anything about performance is the safe course.

I never said I would say "We can only say positive things about the employee. I will therefore remain silent." Those are your words. II only indicated I would follow my employer's guidelines, which would be to refer them to HR for verification of employment. In cases where it was somebody who was a good employee and left for a better opportunity, when asked for a reference I've worked out an agreement on what would be said and ask they use my personal, not work, contact information.

Even if the prospective employer said it was a reference check that cost them a job that does not prove it was your statement that caused it and even if it was since ethe information provided, dates of employment, was factual it's not defamatory.

On what grounds would you sue? You have neither slandered no libeled the employee since you have said nothing; and proving you said nothing as a way of conveying a negative message would be high bar to cross, especially if it is corporate policy not to say anything beyond verifying dates of employment and possibly other facts such as title and last salary. In any case silence is not knowingly and / or maliciously making a false statement about someone, despite how someone may perceive the silence.

To prove you defamed them they need to show you intentionally made negative statements that damaged their reputation and you knew those statements were false. Not saying anything does not meet that basic standard and a jury would be hard to convince that not saying anything about a person's performance met that standard.

That's the problem. If you can't nail down specifics to prove a statement (or silence) resulted in you not getting the job then you can't prove any harm. Couple that with the prospective employer is probably only going to say "we found a better candidate and hired them" without giving specifics so they avoid being sued as well and you can see why such a case is hard to win.

As for not being able to use the defense "it was a true statement" since you have made no statement their is no need to prove the truthfulness of what you said or didn't say.

On what grounds? You have not defamed or libeled the employee, and it would be hard to prove they didn't get the job because you didn't give a reference. Sure, you might find a lawyer to take the case but such a case seems beyond a long shot given how hard it is to win when they do give a bad reference.

Exactly, which is why many do not give meaningful references.

It varies by state to state depending on their laws and what recent court cases have decided so it's hard to say "this is safe / this is not" with any certainty. As an employment lawyer friend pointed out to me, employment law changes with every lawsuit so what was true yesterday may not be today. Thus, many companies prefer to err on the safe side. Not because they would lose a lawsuit but want to avoid one in the first place.

Good point, although many may realize it's simply a way companies protect themselves and not be swayed by it. It's not just former employees that sue either. a company that hires someone could sue the previous employer if they gave a reference that resulted in hiring someone who turns out to cash etch same problems they did a previous job but the previous employer gave a good reference while aware of the issues.

My guess is they may simply because they may not want to face a "Sen XX voted to raise taxes..." ad back home.

Pretty much the same for me. If they call asking for a reference all I can say is "I can verify dates of employment if you want." OTOH, if it is a good employee and they ask me for a reference I tell them to give them my private cell number. I then make it clear I am talking as an individual, not as a representative of my employer. Most understand why the difference because they deal with the same HR and Legal issues at they workplace.