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graphic
iconSee the guy in the upper left? Lost it. Online. And off it goes. From secretary to mailroom to ad-sales and PR back to corporate and then on up to the red-faced furious guy at the end of the line -- and the top of the corporation.

What goes around:
Talking shop online


In this story:

Privacy begins at home

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

RELATED STORIES, SITES Downward pointing arrow


(CNN) -- “You can't have perfect privacy unless you live under a rock.”

Cynthia Morgan, vice president for content and executive producer at techies.com, says privacy in the workplace is something employees expect less and less. And she's drawing from data gleaned in forthcoming results of an Internet privacy survey her company has conducted of more than 1,000 Internet technology (IT) professionals.

  QUICK VOTE
graphic Have you engaged in some online gossip or venting that worries you in retrospect? The kind of thing that could have gotten you canned?

Yeah. Could have finished up my career in a hurry. I feel pretty dumb when I think about it.
Everybody has. In a way, maybe you have to accept this as a hazard of doing business or you'll be totally paranoid.
I've said a few things online that the top floor wouldn't like but I don't think it was career-threatening stuff.
No, I'm careful. I never e-mail or instant-message anything I wouldn't say out loud or in snail mail. You live longer.
View Results

“The survey finds," says Morgan, "that employees are fairly resigned to the fact that Big Brother is watching. They expect some monitoring,” she says. “In fact, 26 percent of the respondents say it's sometimes appropriate for a company to monitor e-mail.”

But how often do companies really watch what you say in an e-mail?

And shouldn't employees be discreet as they dash off the quick, off-color joke or catty message to co-workers?

“A lot of companies do random checks,” says Maxine Retsky, a partner in charge of advertising, promotions and trade practices with the law firm Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe.

And corporations are as good at running searches as you are. Maybe better. Maybe they find their name, or a VP's name or the name of last month's staff retreat you found so ridiculous -- and said so in a chat room. The issue here is colorful commentary about companies on the Web that may not have come from inside the operation at all.

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Privacy begins at home

The techies.com survey data indicates there may be little initial tolerance in the IT community for company surveillance of employee communications "off campus."

Asked how they'd react to a boss and/or employer tracking their Web communications outside of work, 4 percent of respondents said they'd ignore it or do nothing; another 4 percent said they'd transfer to another department; 12 percent said they'd complain; 30 percent said they'd quit their jobs; and a compelling 50 percent of respondents said they'd sue.

"Remember, employees are employees-at-will. While you have a First Amendment right to bad-mouth the company, the company also has a right to dismiss someone for defaming it."
— Maxine Retsky, Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe

So a case of company Internet monitoring of employees outside the business setting could trigger legal action in both directions and make for quite a judicial showdown.

And Retsky's interpretation of the issue makes it clear that there's weight on both sides of the issue.

"When you go home and get on your own computer," she says, "you certainly have some free-speech rights there. But they can come after you for defamation and for violating confidentiality.

"Remember, employees are employees-at-will. While you have a First Amendment right to bad-mouth the company, the company also has a right to dismiss someone for defaming it."

And despite the knockabout, off-the-cuff nature of instant-messaging applications and chat rooms, they may be no more private than company e-mail.

It doesn't stop with criticism. Retsky points out that proprietary information is just that. Disseminating it in a long line of comments blasted into cyberspace contravenes many companies' contracts and policy-manual stipulations.

"If a company chooses to monitor their resources, such as Internet access and e-mail or telephone use, I agree completely. These are tools provided for us to perform our duties, and not for our personal use. Most companies don't have a problem with an occasional local phone call or checking the weather on the Internet."
— A techies.com survey response

Ironically, your intention might be good, too: “Companies are very concerned about employees trying to defend their corporations on the Internet," Retsky says, "and maybe releasing a trade secret in the process. So it's not just negative communications that can be a problem.”

Retsky's perception here is that freedom of speech can stand on the other side of a very thin line in a case of biting the hand that feeds you. Her advice to employees is that they not talk about their employers, positively or negatively, in chat rooms or on message boards.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch

On January 23, U.S. Reps. Chris Cannon, Republican of Utah, and Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, co-sponsored a bill that would, if passed, require Web sites to notify visitors of how your personal data is used. This is a House version of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry's bill, introduced last year.

The fear of many in the IT community is that such legislation can make it through Congress in a Republican-dominated scenario. The preference of many techies is self-regulation by Internet companies, not government controls. As the Information Technology Association of America's Harris Miller puts it, "Unlike most lobbyists or industries in this town, we don't come to town with a long to-do list, but with a long don't-do list."

But when it comes to employer-employee relations around issues of privacy -- and which worker is talking about which boss online while using company communication channels -- there's little sign of protection on the horizon.

"When you go to work, you should be working. Someone has hired you do a job. On the other hand, an eight-hour workday is overrated and at times people get on the Net and surf. If employers can understand that most of us are not machines and that it's human nature to once in a while have humanity step into the workplace, they can monitor, but only flag, things that are an endangerment (to) others ..."
— A techies.com survey response

In fact, on Monday, the Privacy Foundation in Denver warned of a newly identified form of "e-mail wiretap" that allows someone who sends e-mail to see what recipients are adding as they forward it to others in HTML e-mail.

“I have had a couple of (corporate) clients who were having a problem with jokes going around," Retsky says. "The e-mail was taking up too much server space, so the company tracked the joke to see where it originated.

"Even when you erase something from your computer,” says Retsky, that data may be regenerated or stored elsewhere for scrutiny. In litigation, she says, “people fairly regularly recreate what has been erased ... it's only kind of gone to you."

  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Here are a few of the questions that techies.com has asked its survey respondents about their feelings on Internet privacy. See if you agree with what the techies said.
 

While Retsky says she doubts company staffers are gripped by every word written on internal e-mail or messaging programs (AOL Instant MMessengeror MSN Messenger Service), Retsky points out that a problem employee may have his or her electronic communications closely scrutinized.

One techies.com survey respondent calls the selective nature of monitoring unnerving.

“We have been bluntly informed," writes this survey participant, "that we have no reasonable expectation of privacy at work. It states that in our manual. My only real complaint has to do with the manner in which that policy is used. It's my belief that this policy is one of the easiest ways to get rid of an employee. Sending or receiving an off-color joke is essentially grounds for immediate termination. I think these policies are subject to massive abuse.”

Morgan at techies.com says the survey is interesting in that it shows how employees draw shifting lines in the sand about what sort of employer invasions they will or won't tolerate.

“The people we're talking about are IT professionals. And they know exactly how much monitoring can go on. I would expect these folks to be touchy about privacy issues, so it's surprising they're coming back and telling us, 'Of course they can monitor our e-mail.’”
— Cynthia Morgan, techies.com

For instance, while 44 percent of respondents said they feel an employer never has the right to search employees’ desks and lockers, only 25 percent say they believe employers don't have the right to monitor employees’ e-mail.

“The people we're talking about are IT professionals,” says Morgan, “and they know exactly how much monitoring can go on. I would expect these folks to be touchy about privacy issues, so it's surprising they're coming back and telling us, 'Of course they can monitor our e-mail.’”

While many professionals may seem resigned to roving company eyes, Morgan says many employees know exactly what they need to give away in terms of privacy to get what they want professionally.

Early results from the survey indicate there may be a connection between higher salaries and a willingness to give up more privacy rights, says Morgan.

But in so unsettled a climate as we find today around issues of corporate communications and your privacy, a certain paraphrase of your mom may, for now, be the best defense: If you can't say anything nice about somebody, keep your hands off the keyboard.

[watercooler]



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February 5, 2001
Report: Popular wireless networks vulnerable
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Tech groups hope for a do-nothing Congress
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Digital dauphins: Youth vs. age in tech
January 30, 2001
Congress takes on Internet privacy legislation
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IT grads in play: Primed, picky, patient
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RELATED SITES:
Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe
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