Posted by arlene

Some firms have wordy employee manuals covering every aspect of worker life, and an e-mail policy will likely become another tab in the binder. In other places, a more informal code of conduct is described, perhaps during a new-hire orientation, and may be reinforced with a written handbook or intranet page describing proper use of resources including e-mail. Small businesses may not have a written policy at all. Whatever your corporate culture and practice, though, your company should explain and publicize the following points to all e-mail users:

Company e-mail is only for business purposes. It’s useful to give positive and negative examples as a nonexclusive illustration of the policy: “Please do not give your work e-mail address to friends or family to contact you other than for work-related matters. Also, you should not put your work e-mail address as a contact point for any online shopping or similar services, nor should you subscribe to e-mail discussion lists for hobbies or private interests with this address. If people do start sending you personal notes to this account, please let them know that they should use another address or, if you don’t have a personal e-mail address, contact you in a different way outside the office.”

All company e-mail is the property of the company, and may be monitored to ensure the system is used for business purposes. This is a crucial point to make, and one that is frequently ignored or resented by employees. It means that anything created on the company system or using its connection (if an employee is out of the office) is the property of the company not only for copyright purposes, but for review as well. In most cases this is both a matter of law and policy, but stating it to employees prior to their use of the service makes it more likely that the company will be able to enforce this doctrine if necessary. It can be helpful to remind any unhappy employees that the company pays for the software, hardware, connection, and support that makes the e-mail service possible. Many employees would be surprised to hear what their “free” e-mail is costing their employer.

Any e-mail message from the company’s domain may be assumed (or legally held) to be the official position of the company, with all the liability that may entail. Even mandatory disclaimers on messages such as, “The preceding message may not reflect the opinion of my employer,” may not be sufficient to prevent bad will or legal action against the company for a statement made by an employee in a mail note.

Double-check every address before sending a message… then check again. Even with this warning, mistakes will happen, but the more the policy can emphasize this risk (together with some horror stories, real or hypothetical), the less likely employees will be to send messages incorrectly.

Do not use e-mail for sensitive or legal materials without checking with a company manager and/or counsel. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the increased exposure in the event of misdirection to a later discovery request that could pull copies of any messages from the sender, the recipient, or either’s backup tapes. Unfortunately, for all its seriousness, this is often the most difficult policy item to implement, particularly in time-critical situations like acquisitions when materials are being sent and received by a number of parties both inside and outside of the company. Still, it is imperative that you educate those employees handling sensitive materials and create a chain of authority for quick decisions about whether to use e-mail or not.

Do not infringe copyrights or other proprietary rights by e-mailing materials without getting the permission of the author. If you can’t find the author, don’t send it. It is a little-known but nonetheless important point that almost all e-mail is protected by copyright from the moment it’s created—any author can in theory prohibit another user from forwarding the message. In reality, most authors will never assert their copyrights in e-mail, in part because most e-mail does not have the same commercial value. On the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of e-mail forwarding of articles, jokes, images, and videos—almost anything that can be digitized. This is not only a copyright infringement, but (depending on how large the forwarding list and the commercial value of the material being passed along) may even represent a criminal copyright violation, one just as likely to be imputed to the company (with its deeper pockets) as to the individual, even if such individual can be found.

Under no circumstances should any of the following, if received via e-mail, be forwarded, particularly by nontechnical personnel, without careful verification: warnings of new viruses such as those that can propagate through e-mail; chain letters; appeals for donations of any kind; or stories that a friend’s friend swears are true. E-mail users, particularly ones with online friends, will receive dire warnings about the Good Times virus or pleas to send cards to Craig Shergold, probably multiple times. The Internet and especially e-mail have allowed many rumors, misunderstandings, and out-and-out hoaxes to perpetuate themselves long after the original creators have gone on to other, perhaps more productive, pursuits. People often forward these warnings or solicitations with the best motives, feeling they are protecting their acquaintances or doing a good deed, but the result is a large volume of useless and even costly e-mail.

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