From: “Douglas R. Floyd” <dfloyd@IO.COM>
To: jims@MPGN.COM (James C. Sewell)
Message Hash: 4e8b25723474e4d1f2203958e96720dbaeac16e942e462c2ca5f917d9a18dfdc
Message ID: <199608052008.PAA19323@pentagon.io.com>
Reply To: <2.2.32.19960805173421.0075df00@tansoft.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-08-05 23:58:49 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 07:58:49 +0800
From: "Douglas R. Floyd" <dfloyd@IO.COM>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 07:58:49 +0800
To: jims@MPGN.COM (James C. Sewell)
Subject: Re: Corporate e-mail policy
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960805173421.0075df00@tansoft.com>
Message-ID: <199608052008.PAA19323@pentagon.io.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
>
> At 11:22 PM 8/3/96 -0400, Rabid Wombat wrote:
>
> > What you
> >publish as a use policy, and what you actively enforce do not have to be
> >the same.
> >
>
> Unfortunately this is a problem in many companies. There are policies
> which are enforced to the letter, guidelines which are just suggestions,
> and fake-rules which are not even attempted to be enforced.
>
> The problem comes when the employee and employer can't distinguish
> them from each other.
>
> Personally I think I would approach it as the privacy we have with the
> eontents of our car's trunk. If an officer has probable cause to search
> the trunk then he can, otherwise he can't. It's not a perfect system but
> it does work better than other alternatives I can think of.
>
> Write into your policy:
> "Electronic mail may be monitored if there is sufficient reason to
> believe that it is being improperly used which includes, but is not
> limited to: mail to competitors, more than 20 recipients (spam), and
> incoming mail from questionable sources. If such monitored mail is
> encrypted the employee must provide a clear text version of the mail
> which is to be unencrypted under supervision to avoid substitutions.
> Any employee refusing to make available such mail will be ...."
Personally, a policy may save or cause lots of money in losses. My
recommendation: Have an attorney look your policy over, or have him/her
write it for you.
It may cost some money, but may possibly save your company.
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