classified advertising on intranets

[Shirl Kennedy]

Does anyone in this group work for a public institution which has an
intranet that hosts classified advertising for employees?  Or an in-house
newsletter that runs classified ads for employees?

Although I'm not responsible for our City's intranet, its Webmaster is a
newbie (primary job is VB programmer), and I hand-hold when necessary. At
any rate, this guy's boss wants him to come up with stuff that will increase
employee awareness and use of the intranet.  Being a programmer, he wrote a
very nice classified advertising application in Active Server Pages that
would let employees post ads and/or contact those with something to
buy/sell/rent.  Someone higher up the municipal food chain decided that this
should be "run by" the City Attorney's office.

Big mistake.  First e-mail back from the attorney's office said this was a
Bad Idea and quoted some portion of the Uniform Commercial Code about
"assumed liability" or somesuch.  The intranet Webmaster replied that
bulletin boards in City employee lounges and lunchrooms were full of notices
put up by employees offering cars for sale, real estate for rent,
babysitting services, what-have-you.  And I jumped into the fray and
explained that hosting employee classified advertising on intranets or in
newletters was very common -- and very popular -- in the private sector.

Back came an e-mail from the attorney (a very nice woman, by the way, but
not very Net-savvy and...after all...an attorney) stating that "...any
expenditure of (City) time or money has to be tied to a public purpose."
She was also "concerned" about the advertising on employee bulletin boards
and said she would have to "...speak with Human Resources."

Hmmm....  Whereas there are no classified ads in our City employee
newsletter, there is all sorts of gossip about who got married, who had a
new baby, whose kid won a scholarship...you know the drill.  I don't know as
this kind of stuff is "...tied to a public purpose" either, but heck...
*I'm* not an attorney.

Comments, anyone?  Pointers to useful people or resources?

Shirl Kennedy
Web Doyenne