You can stop wondering. A new study has confirmed what many cubicle dwellers have long suspected: Many companies, maybe even yours, are monitoring outgoing e-mails.
According to a new
survey conducted by
Forrester Consulting and sponsored by
Proofpoint Inc., a company that makes anti-spam and mail filtering software, over 43% of corporations with more than 20,000 employees employ personnel to monitor and read their staff's outbound e-mail.
The survey of 140 corporate decision-makers found that companies are concerned about employees leaking sensitive information via e-mail, which ranked as the biggest reason behind the snooping policy.
The survey comes on the heels of a recent federal court ruling which held that it is perfectly legal for ISPs to read and copy the inbound e-mail of their clients. The
ruling , by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, held that e-mail does not enjoy the same eavesdropping protections as telephone conversations, because it is stored on servers before being routed to recipients. (Excellent op/eds
here and
here)
Word up: America Online, EarthLink, and Yahoo all have privacy policies prohibiting them from reading customer e-mail, except in the case of a court order.
If it's sensitive, protect it. Don't use the bossman's server.