INTERNET - CEO postings can be hits or headaches

Many corporations have discovered that putting their executives in front of a keyboard can generate positive buzz for the company. But the Whole Foods Market Inc. CEO's pseudonymous Internet message board postings revealed this week -- like off-the-cuff entries by other corporate executives on their blogs -- can become a public relations headache, experts say, and possibly trigger litigation.

Although executives generally have far more latitude than their employees to ruminate about the workings of their company and those of their competitors -- or to riff on their favorite books and restaurants -- there are limits to what executives can and should say online.

Many companies have clamped down in recent years on blogging by workers, even firing disgruntled employees who have broadcast negative comments or revealed proprietary information.

At the same time, a growing number of company chiefs have stepped onto their own virtual soapboxes, using blogs to build connections with employees, partners, shareholders and customers.

Their electronic megaphones let the public "pull up the curtain a bit on corporate operations," observed Debbie Weil, who wrote "The Corporate Blogging Book." The postings humanize the CEO and tell readers how he or she thinks. "You're running a big public corporation; people want to know," Weil said.

But disparaging comments from the boss also "carry the imprimatur of the business itself," said Rich Paul, a San Diego attorney who represents employers. If those comments defame a company or a product, "then the enterprise itself might have liability," he said. If those postings contain insider information, they might run afoul of Securities and Exchange Commission rules, Paul added.

Whole Foods' Mackey, who also blogs on the company's site under his real name, posted messages under a false identity on Yahoo Finance stock forums for eight years ending in August. Many of the messages he sent as "Rahodeb" were critical of Wild Oats Markets Inc., which Whole Foods is trying to acquire.

In other postings, Rahodeb -- the handle is an anagram of Deborah, his wife's name -- trumpeted Whole Foods' stock gains and praised Mackey. "While I'm not a 'Mackey groupie,' I do admire what the man has accomplished," he wrote in 2000.

The postings came to light in documents filed by Whole Foods on Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission, which is seeking to block the Wild Oats acquisition.