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Thread: Email monitoring in the workplace

  1. #11
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    I think it all been said above but here are my 2 cents

    As an employee using company equipment and company infrastructure the company has the right to review my email. I have an ISP which I use for personal email. It was mentioned above that network admins do not have time to review email this is I think generally this is true. At my old job emails where considered private unless a complaint was logged with HR (to the best of my knowledge this never happened). I now work for a power company we are regulated and emails are occasionally presented as evidence in regulatory hearings -here I am much more paranoid.

    That's my $0.02

    -D

    -----------------
    Just because your paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you

  2. #12
    I'd rather be fishing DjM's Avatar
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    You may want to think about this. If a Company is all in favor of installing an E-Mail monitoring process, ask them if they are also in favor of 'tapping' every business phone in the Company. The simple old telephone can be abused in a similar fashion as e-mail (personal e-mails - personal phone calls, Sending 'secrets' via e-mail - telling those same 'secrets' to someone over the phone).
    My point, most Companies hire people to be professional, let them be professional. If you start monitoring e-mail, what next? Do you put 'swipe key locks' on the bathrooms so you can see how much time is being wasted taking a leak?



    DjM

  3. #13


    DjM you just described one of the more recent company's i did some recent free lance work for. email is monitored, all phones are taped, and EVERY door has a mag key card on it. the real odd thing is that this company extremely huge. i don't see how they keep up with everything though. i will refrain from naming this company, ("can you hear me now?")
    4ChecK

    --ssshhh, be vewry, vewry quiet...

  4. #14
    Originally posted by jparker[]
    Look at it like this........
    Point: Keep your private **** at home. It's thier house, they can throw you out for doing **** they don't want you to do.
    EOF

    That's how I see it too, Mr Parker. When at work ALWAYS assume you're being monitored. Don't even give the social implication of email monitoring a second thought. Just assume your company IS monitoring your email and than no harm is done. You'd be rather foolish to send personal (or even company) information if you thought you were being monitored.

    I obviously don't agree with Companies invading personal privacy but like previously stated- "It's their money and their network"......They make the rules.


    I've said this 100 times on these threads-- ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE!

  5. #15
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    ::: Laughin :::

    dJm....
    we also monitor the phones, but like I said, I dont have time to hang out and look at every number or listen to any phone calls, but yes phones are in fact monitored.

    Why phones?? Well we need to track how many cold calls the sales staff are doing, how many incoming calls go to what department, and we have also had a slight issue with large unexplained long distance charges (turned out a staff member was calling his sister all day)

    Doesnt sound like much, but the days of venture capital dumping millions into a company "for the hell of it" are over, if we're going to survive we need to keep costs down here and there.

    sounds harsh??? How many people do you know that DONT have their own personal Cellular phone?

    ~THEJRC~
    ~THEJRC~
    I\'ll preach my pessimism right out loud to anyone that listens!
    I\'m not afraid to be alive.... I\'m afraid to be alone.

  6. #16
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    Thumbs up

    It's the companys network. I belive they have the right to control whats on it. People can send the pics of themselves in leather from home to buddies. All the firms that I service. They don't realy check for content. They just have me block attachments and allow only plain text emails. Of course most of them just have me to block ports for popular file sharing programs. Besides I always fix them a signon screen with the rules posted at login. As the old saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". The network belongs to them. At home it belongs to you. That simple.
    The COOKIE TUX lives!!!!
    Windows NT crashed,I am the Blue Screen of Death.
    No one hears your screams.


  7. #17
    Originally posted by {P²P}Apocalypse
    They just have me block attachments and allow only plain text emails.

    That's just common courtesy. Same on the NewsGroups. Everything has to be in plain text. NO HTML. When you think about it, it makes good sense.


    As far as phone call monitoring though, come one, that's got to be breaking some law. Just because it's a private company does that somehow make it above the law? It seems that alot of these companies are more like cruel dictatorships than a democracy....

  8. #18

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    I myself do not agree with e-mail monitoring in the workplace because it's an invasion of ones privacy. Plus when you get your regular mail deliverd it does not come open because that is against the law so i think e-mail is the same thing exept over the internet. To me mail is mail no matter how you get it. I can understand that maybe watching the incoming amount of mail or going out to see if that person is doing there work or if there just e-mailing people all day and not getting anything done. Anyhow thats just my opinion.




    ANTI-HACKERS

  9. #19
    Senior Member
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    Let me preface this by saying that, at my company, we have a policy(reviewed and signed by employees), which states that we have the right to monitor email/web browsing, anything we want basically, at any time.

    We very very very rarely use this.

    However. Think on this. We do not have this policy because we think that employees are "wasting time" sending personal email. Or wasting time browsing ebay, or something(thouhg we did have one person who spent about 80 percent of their day buying or selling on ebay, man that was expensive for the company). We do not do this because we think we OWN the employee, or to find out about the employee's personal life.

    We reserve the right to monitor email and web browsing for 2 reasons. If an employee sends mail from our domain, which is threatening, or offensive to the recipeint, or several other things, WE as a company are liable. That costs money, sometimes, lots of money. Also, if an employee spends 80 percent of his/her time browsing the web, that also costs money, lots of it. A person is not hired simply because they breathe, and deserve to be payed. A company hires someone to do a certain job. Usually this "job" requires some "effort" on the part of the employee, which I know is a great sacrifice for many people. Also, if an employee is browing sites with a sexual theme, or a racist theme, and another employee who happens to be sensitive to those topics sees that, the company is liable.
    We do not give a **** at all, what an employee does with email or the internet, or anything, provide that they get their job done. However, so many people these days seem to think that they deserve to get payed simply because they breathe, and take offense anytime someone even hints that their "work" email may be monitored, when they cant even be bothered to give a days work for a days pay.

    Bottom line is. If you have to send personal email. Get a "personal" email account. It isnt like they cost any money. Hell, yahoo and many other sites give them out for free.

    When you are at work, being payed by your employer, using internet circuits and bandwidth payed for by the employer, there is no reason at all for you to be doing anything other than your job, unless your employer(as many do) "allows" you to use their bandwidth, email servers, and storage space for personal reasons. All of these things cost money. T-1 lines don't grow on trees, available for anyone to just pick up. Your company may have a use for all the bandwidth a full T-1 gives, and your browsing may interupt business.

    So, bottom line is. You work for one reason, because working makes you money. Employers also are there for the same reason. To make money. They are not there to provide charity for the employees. If a company decides that no one is allowed to browse for personal reaons while being payed by the company, that is their right. If you are being payed for 8 hours of work, that means, 8 hours of work. Not 7 hours of work with an hour lunch break, or even 6.5 hours of work with lunch and browsing the web time.

    If you need to browse the web, or send personal email, there is no right that you have to do it on company time, using company resources. If you have to send mail that is personal in nature, that you dont want anyone in your company to see. Dont send it from work. Even if your company does not monitor mail, there is a chance that you could type the address incorrectly, and have the mail bounce, and be delivered to your systme admin, who needs to look at the email to figure out why it bounced. So, the supposed secret of an employees same sex cross dressing siginificant other is no longer secret or private, simply because an admin "must" review bounced mail to ensure that there is not a configuration problem with their system.

    heh, I am positive that I will get negative antipoints for this, but, I really have stopped caring. The idea that the way you waste your time while being payed by someone else is none of their business, is ridiculous.

    If you hired someone to fix the roof on your house. And were paying them by the hour, and you discovered that while they were charging you 8 hours a day, while working six hours, and spending the other 2 hours in a cofee shop chatting with their friends, would you be willing to continue paying that?????????????

    How is it anydifferent for your employer????????

    /me puts on his fireproof suit!

    flame on people.

    IchNiSan

  10. #20
    Senior Member
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    I´ll go with the middle line. The company don´t own me and they will never pay me enough for the different thing I´ve been working with. BUT, those people that can´t handle the freedom of unlimited access to the net and can download/send asorted files (mp3, mpeg and whatsnot) should get a slap on the wrist. But I should still be able to send a couple of private mails and maybe call home to ask what I should pick up at the store.
    Yeah, they own their net and should have controll over it.

    But hey, wait.. uhm.. that means that it is ok to have systems like Echelon monitoring everything. The traffic monitored runs trough systems that those governments own.
    Damn, I´m contradicting myself, I despise Echelon and what it stands for but at the same time I think the companies should do it.
    Dear Santa, I liked the mp3 player I got but next christmas I want a SA-7 surface to air missile

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