Legal Question in Technology Law in Illinois

Re: Non-Compete Agreement and Internet.

I would need to see a copy of the agreement to know for sure. However, if it is a general non-compete agreement, then I would say you'd be fine so long as put a notice on your website that you cannot accept business in the "protected" area. Your employer's attorney is going by the book because you are engaging in (presumptively) the same business that the agreement speaks to. Unless you have something on your website (which I assume you don't), they are well within their rights to assume you are indeed trying to compete against them and are thus in violation of the agreement. Hope this helps. Any more ?s, call me.

Good luck,

Curt Handley, Esq.

Re: Non-Compete Agreement and Internet.

This is an interesting question, but I think that the spirit of the non-compete IS clearly violated unless the website that you had been running was specifically mentioned as being permitted competition at the time you signed the non-compete. If you didn't protect your interest in running the website, then I think your employer was reasonable to assume that you had ceased any unknown business that competed with their own. Now, if your employer actually knew about the website and that it had been running consistently since 2000, you have a good argument that they have waived any right to enforce the agreement whether orders originate within 100 miles or not. Since they knew and did nothing, you could argue that the site did not truly compete with your employer, OR they didn't feel it worth pursuing. Either way, consult a local attorney knowledgeable about non-competes and whether your local court enforce the specific clause in your agreement. The attempt to limit your business to non-local areas is probably unrealistic, because then you're getting into the swamp of internet jurisdiction, monitoring and all sorts of complications.