You've Got Mail, And Your Boss Is Reading It
from the how-nice dept
It turns out that the vast majority of companies no longer trust their employees with their own email accounts. 92% of companies now say that they check up on how their employees use email - though nearly half of all companies don't bother mentioning this fact to their employees. They mostly say it's okay for people to do some amount of personal stuff via email, as long as it's reasonable, but most don't bother to define "reasonable" to their employees. Many companies also don't have any system in place to make sure that whoever is monitoring email doesn't abuse the system. Just another reminder that it probably makes sense to have a personal email account for personal business.
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
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Momma always said...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
not everybody
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And It Could be Public One Day
While they can still be monitored, but with more difficulty, I always do personal email over a web email service and leave the official pop servier for business.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: not everybody
Your communications section reads your e-mail all the time. Where I'm at, the communications sections actually sends e-mails *as* individual users! I had a user grab me in the hall today and ask why they had recieved a return recipet for an e-mail message they didn't send from themselves to theirself that didn't appear in their sent items.
Now, I won't even go into some of the details about pilots who have been called before his boss because their free-lance war stories to the editors of certain magazines got caught in the surveillence net.
privacy legislation, HIPAA, lawyer-client privlidge, all of it is null and void in the name of National Security(tm). Because you don't know this, I can tell you work on the other side of the fence... silly rabbit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: not everybody
I agree there is a lot of pressure to prevent
peons spying on each other, but at high levels
none of that applies - bosses see anything they
want to see. No warrent needed. Don't you remember all the forms you signed when you got your account - basically informing you that you have NO expectations of privacy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: not everybody
To clarify: your email and phone may be monitored by security. Your boss cannot do so. So fuck both of you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cat's Out of the Bag
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Revenge is Bitter Tasting
[ link to this | view in chronology ]