Email auditing

[Derek Broughton]

charlie derr wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:

>> There are numerous other cases where it would be both ethical and proper.
>> What about a large business where you want a record of every email sent
>> to particular addresses.
> 
>> In any case, if the intent is really for a company to copy a user's email
>> - without that user's knowledge - the _legal_ issue is that it's probably
>> the company's right in most jurisdictions, and the _ethical_ issue is
>> that an employee shouldn't be using company email for things that the
>> company shouldn't be entitled to copy.
> 
> I feel differently.  I don't necessarilly feel that I'm somehow "more
> ethical" than you though.  

I understand :-)

> I just feel we have different 
> views of ethics (which is fine).  I'm looking at things from the other
> side -- that is, the expectation that most non-technical
> users have of their own personal privacy.  

I strongly feel that it's important that users learn NOT to expect privacy
on somebody else's system.  On a practical note, they should try not to
have that expectation.

> Even inside a business, I'd 
> argue that it pays for the IT folks (or whoever) to not be
>   overly intrusive in terms of monitoring communication (because I
>   strongly believe that employees who have a belief that the
> company they're working for is watching every single thing they do are
> likely to be significantly less productive than people who work for an
> organization that they trust is not violating their privacy).

I'd like to believe nobody has a right to routinely peruse my emails - but I
have no reason to expect they aren't cached somewhere, and may be used if I
violate the company's (hopefully, published) policies.

> And lots of folks don't operate within those constraints anyhow, that is,
> there are many system administrators whose job is to
> provide service to non-employees (and therefore the legal expectation of
> privacy is completely different).  

In the US, I believe the law _requires_ ISPs to keep your email...  Court
cases are still ongoing, afaik.
-- 
derek