Parry Aftab, Esq.,
The Privacy Lawyer™
managing cybercrime, privacy and cyber-abuse risks

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Cyberspace in the Workplace:

Knock...Knock... Who's there? Risky e-mails you receive...

We've analyzed outgoing communications to death. Defamation, trade secret violations, attorney-client privilege, the list goes on and one...but incoming e-mail is risky too. E-mail messages tend to be viewed as more ephemeral than written correspondence and might be taken less seriously by the employees who receive it. Further, unlike paper correspondence, an e-mail message typically bypasses the company's mailroom and can be duplicated instantaneously, rendering it difficult to file and track.

How do you treat unsolicited ideas when someone sends them to you by postal mail? How do you deal with e-mails and feedback sent to the webmaster from your website? While most companies have a policy with respect to unsolicited written submissions, many forget to apply that policy to electronic submissions and provide for a centralized response. Otherwise, anyone at a company with an e-mail address (often virtually everyone) might receive unsolicited e-mails, never even read them, and exposes the company to claims that its independently created idea was submitted in the unsolicited message. Even worse, the e-mail could be forwarded from employee to employee until it becomes impossible for anyone to prove that the employee originating the new idea wasn't influenced by the submission.

If you offer an e-mail comment option, make sure you're prepared to deal with the submissions. What system has been set up to deal with customer complaints or questions? Is that system efficient? Is it consistent? Is it capable to rendering a timely response? A popular site can receive thousands of e-mails or submissions a day. If they aren't treated with care, these unanswered and unacknowledged submissions can bring down a company site and maybe the company itself.

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Copyright © 2005 Parry Aftab
Last modified: 02/04/07
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