Should Employers Read Employees' Email

from the talking-about-ethics... dept

Fri, Apr 28th 2000 1:03pm — Mike Masnick

There's an interesting column over at ZD concerning whether or not companies should read their employees' emails and fire folks for talking bad about the company or doing non-work related items while at work. Personally, I think companies that do this are only fostering an environment of paranoia and mistrust. If that's the environment you want, then go for it.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

3 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

MrWhite, 28 Apr 2000 @ 8:47pm

they......can, and do.........should they? Their
I am all for privicy......then again, I am all for freedom of employers. When I type email, non-releated @ work ...cause I have to keep busy. I *never* put something whacky/evil in the Subject:

When I do type, in the body of a message, I type g*ns for guns, so that I am not filtered, sorta paranoid but then again I have reasons to believe it. I am a system admin, and I have to 'snoop' on people's systems to find 'dirt' to get them fired. BAD and EVIL I say, but that is my job, you don't make friends doing it but then again thes people should not be doing this stuff at work.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Judy Christopherson, 16 Apr 2006 @ 4:57am

EMAIL
Yes, I found out the hard way. I got fired apparently for an e-mail concerning a demotion and commenting on an affair going on in the office that i had complained about to upper management but nothing had been done about it. I was only emailing someone within the bank and that was all. When I went to court, it was found that they actually could produce no policy they had on it, and admitted it was OK to send personal email, so the judge ruled in my favor. I hate them for what they did. They have actually devasted me both emotionally and financially. I think they should have to disclose what exactly they are going to take offense to. There were other people sending pornography to people within the institution and they did nothing at all about it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Adrienne, 16 Jan 2008 @ 8:32am

Email
I personally believe, as a manager, that as long as the work is done, there is no problem at all with sending/reading personal email at work. I had an experience with a previous employee where she was spending all of her time at work looking for a new house, sending emails back & forth in attempts to buy a new home, all during her regular work hours. I would not normally have a problem with this however she was NOT doing the work I had assigned to her as a result of this. I approached her and told her that she was welcome to do what she wanted only after her work was completed because if her lack of work was causing me to fall behind, I had an issue with that. We talked about it and she agreed. Low & behold, she started working and got caught up. After that, I allowed her to continue with her home search. For those of us that spend all of regular business hours at work, I understand that it is difficult to get personal business done if it's not done while we are at work. Plain and simple, get your work done first and then play.
[ link to this | view in thread ]