June 2007

E-mail Reminder

America’s companies continue to lose billions by making the same mistake over and over again, all in the name of convenience. The culprit is e-mail. Here are some risk reduction ideas:

• Never say anything confidential in an e-mail. Remember that the company reserves the right to read anything you e-mail on its network. Tens of thousands of employees are fired and employers sued over information appearing in e-mails that were supposedly confidential.
• Never say anything offensive in an e-mail. As harmless as it may seem to vent to a co-worker or manager about someone through e-mail, you must remember that the e-mail on the company’s network is not confidential. Furthermore, you just never know to whom it may be forwarded, intentionally or not.
• Keep e-mail. When conducting business via e-mail, you are creating an electronic and potential paper trail that must be properly recorded just as any other document. Businesses are losing billions in litigation due to information lost in cyberspace. And remember, e-mail can be used as evidence, both for and against you in court.