Jordan wrote an excellent post on Sunday about how emails really aren't private and I commented that even "private/personal" emails used at work can be easily read by your employer. Then I read the CFO IT article on Six Degrees of Cooperation about how software has been created that reads employee email to see who knows whom and who can form better business deals through their connections. I think this is a valid use of the company's email system to use it for all it's worth but I worry about the potential for "mining" personal emails.
The article mentions the privacy concerns and suggests that you might be asked to help based on a "business connection" with an ex-girlfriend. I think that might be a case where the connection could help prevent the deal from occurring. I like how the Visible Path software has the anonymity built-in to the software where if a connection isn't approved by the link, no one knows who that link was.
I wonder how easy that employee protection would be to circumvent if a supervisor really wanted or needed that connection to be made. How much more would the company simply have to pay out for that privacy layer to be removed?
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3 comments:
george i was pretty suprised when i found that viedo also but Im just really shocked companies are allowed to do that... I know its there email address technically but its private you wrote it and sent it to the person you wnated it read by...If you wanted it read by the entire company then you would have sent it to them
I think this also brings up important issues of separating work and personal emails.
More importantly, if an employer can look at your network and perhaps sees that you don't have a large one, is that means to fire someone? And if so, how will those with few connections (such as college students) create more connections?
I defineately agree with the email screening thing being a little too over board. I don't think the company should screen their employee's emails just to basically intrude on their, what could be really personal life, in order to benefit the company. Things like that could put a damper on personal relationships not only in the work place, but other places as well.
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