RE: Personal Privacy issues -- MIDRANGE-L

Try not to look at your e-mail as private "content".  I don't look at my
telephone use as content.  A corporation implements e-mail as a tool to
facilitate business communication.  Ideally, they would take the hard line
and limit e-mail use to business communication.  Just as the corporation
would have the right to any internal memo or external business mail you send
or receive, they quite reasonably assume the right to any business
communication you send through their e-mail system.

Many businesses either never state their e-mail policy or rarely enforce it.
Even a company smart enough to implement signed e-mail policy agreements
tolerates private e-mail -- they just reserve the right to nail you at any
time.  Because they tacitly give us the leeway to take e-mail from our
friends and family, we assume that we have the right to communicate
privately on their service.  Corporate e-mail is a business tool.  Using it
for personal purposes should be understood to be at your own risk.

Even if your company were actually liberal enough to protect your e-mail
privacy you're still not safe.  If your company goes through an audit all
e-mail may be reviewed as business records along with your application
systems data.  E-mail data may be seized in bankruptcy or lawsuits,
regardless of your company's privacy policy.

To me using e-mail for private use is up there with sending personal faxes,
using their copy machines for tax returns, entertaining your real estate
clients in your office, having sex on their conference room tables, or
boarding livestock in their parking garage.  At your own risk.

If I've got e-mail that I don't want stored on my company's e-mail servers I
just abuse my corporate Internet privileges to access my AOL account via the
web.

-Jim


-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nandelin@relational-data.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 6:33 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Personal Privacy issues


> Just as your employer has the ability to monitor email
> stored on corporate email servers, your employer could
> also monitor traffic going to/from Yahoo servers through
> their firewall.

The sad part, is that most employees don't care.  Or at least they willingly
agree to the corporate policy that affirms corporate ownership of any
employee generated content on the network.  Of course, most people aren't in
a position to argue with management.

Thanks Janet,

Nathan M. Andelin
www.relational-data.com




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