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To answer most of the sibling comments: "U.S. Court Affirms Employer's Right to Read Employees' Email" at http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-14518/U-S-Cou

by 1gor 18y ago

To answer most of the sibling comments: "U.S. Court Affirms Employer's Right to Read Employees' Email" at http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-14518/U-S-Court-Affirms-Employer.html http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-14518/U-S-Court-Affi... Keeping anything private on a corporate laptop or accessing private email through corporate network does not guarantee any privacy at all. There is a company right now arguing it has right to read Yahoo email of an employee. http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/06/company_argues.html http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/06/co... I take downmodding of my comment above as a sign of righteous indignation about US privacy laws.

cperciva 18y ago
U.S. Court Affirms Employer's Right to Read Employees' Email Fraser v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company is entirely irrelevant here: That case dealt with whether a company has the right to access emails stored on the company's server. There's a question of privacy there, but not one of computer crime -- Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company did not access computer systems without the owner's permission. This is manifestly different from the situation as I read it to be here, where it was being alleged that the article's author's VPN was being accessed without his permission. The Structured Settlements case is more relevant, but it fails on two counts: First, the legal theory being put forward by Structured Settlements involves them merely observing what Mr. Palma had done on one of their computers -- their claim is that they didn't access his Yahoo account, but merely saw him accessing his Yahoo account -- and second, the Structured Settlements case has yet to be tested in a courtroom. Yes, the US has very weak privacy laws, but that doesn't extend to its computer crime laws -- and accessing a computer system without authorization is a computer crime, not just a privacy violation. And of course, IANAL, the above is not legal advice, etc.

by 1gor 18y ago

cperciva 18y ago

U.S. Court Affirms Employer's Right to Read Employees' Email Fraser v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company is entirely irrelevant here: That case dealt with whether a company has the right to access emails stored on the company's server. There's a question of privacy there, but not one of computer crime -- Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company did not access computer systems without the owner's permission. This is manifestly different from the situation as I read it to be here, where it was being alleged that the article's author's VPN was being accessed without his permission. The Structured Settlements case is more relevant, but it fails on two counts: First, the legal theory being put forward by Structured Settlements involves them merely observing what Mr. Palma had done on one of their computers -- their claim is that they didn't access his Yahoo account, but merely saw him accessing his Yahoo account -- and second, the Structured Settlements case has yet to be tested in a courtroom. Yes, the US has very weak privacy laws, but that doesn't extend to its computer crime laws -- and accessing a computer system without authorization is a computer crime, not just a privacy violation. And of course, IANAL, the above is not legal advice, etc.