sendmail.net: Email, Privacy, and the Law

"It's a nightmare scenario: You make someone mad, they sue, and suddenly your once private email is delivered directly into their hands - everything you've ever said about them, right down to your spelling errors, available for them to poke, sift, and sniff to their heart's content."

"Think it can't happen? Then you put way too much stock in the word 'privacy.' In today's litigious world, there's no such thing."

"The notion of 'private' email makes most lawyers laugh. There's nothing private about it, no matter how many layers of cryptography you've wrapped around it or how well you've squirreled it away. Though most people use email casually - often as a replacement for the phone or to avoid shouting over a cube wall - it meets every definition of 'written communication.' That has enormous implications to anyone who sends it, receives it, even stores it."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• VNU Net: EC bans passing consumer data to the US(Mar 01, 2000)
• VNU Net: Cookies crumble under data protection legislation(Feb 28, 2000)
• ComputerWorld: FTC names Web privacy panelists(Jan 22, 2000)