E-mail has been around since 1972 and was already a very established form of communication in the pre World Wide Web incarnation of the Internet.
In the early 1990's e-mail was confined to text messages, and was used largely by academics and for other non-commercial activities. The role of e-mail has developed in the last 5 years into a normal business tool, and is regarded with no special considerations compared to the other more long-standing means of communication.
The second generation of e-mail users, use e-mail to send not only simple messages, but also word processing documents, voice, fax, video and audio - and anything else digital.
The reach of e-mail has extended beyond the boundaries of the company to anybody who has an Internet address. This includes customers, suppliers, potential customers, and competitors and allies, in the personal world it also includes friends and family. E-mail can have the characteristics of a written telephone conversation, rather than the measured formality normally associated with business letters. The ability to respond almost immediately to an e-mail bypasses the drafting and filtering process that letters normally undergo.
The consequences of being able to send anything to anybody has potentially serious implications for companies and individuals. Such consequences include, legal liability for anything from breach of confidence (e.g. sending client lists to competitors), defamation (Norwich Union paid £450,000 in one instance), sexual, racial and other harassment (several cases have involved use of e-mail), as well as numerous potential offences ranging from breaches of the companies acts to hacking and breach of copyright.
Other Internet use related issues which should be addressed by all companies include preventing virus attacks and employee access to pornography. From a company's point of view, the potential of the company to be vicariously liable for the acts of employees in certain circumstances should be a major concern.
A commonly overlooked issue relates to the required information to be included in any of business communication of a company. These include company number, name and registered office and other similar matters addressed in the Companies Act 1985 and the Business Names Act 1985. Many companies appear not to view e-mail as a communication within the meaning of these acts. This is mistaken. All companies should implement an acceptable user policy for both Internet access and e-mail use.
Comp-U-Secure includes Internet filtering to give you comprehensive and secure Internet access management across your entire network. It can be implemented in minutes and is transparent to end-users. Like the Comp-U-Secure email filter, internet filtering only helps you enforce your Acceptable Usage and Security Policies, but it also helps you avoid the legal liability and decreased employee productivity associated with unfiltered Web access.
Comp-U-Secure is the comprehensive on-demand solution that takes care of email, Web and instant message filtering and provides your organization with hosted email and secure archiving. Our Global Gateway of redundant servers takes care of your mission critical security, collaboration and mobile synchronization functions, leaving you free to focus on growing your business. Our hosted solution deploys within minutes to bring you enterprise-level features at a fraction of the cost and complexity of doing it yourself. Your service includes these great features plus 24/7 technical email and phone support. |
