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stories filed under: "email"
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, privacy, text messages, work

Court Says Personal Email From Work Can Still Be Protected Attorney-Client Communications

from the well-that's-interesting dept

We've seen plenty of cases where courts have said that an individual has no expectation of privacy on emails sent from work, and therefore cannot protect those emails. However, in an interesting new ruling (found via the EFF), a court found that personal emails sent from work computers can still be considered privileged and confidential as an attorney-client communication.

Of course, there's a bit more to this case that makes the facts a bit different and makes me wonder if it would apply in other circumstances. In this case, it dealt with a federal prosecutor who was fired, and is trying to claim that the firing was for his whistle-blowing. He was trying to access the emails of a US Attorney that he believes will reveal why he was fired. So it wasn't a case of a company trying to review the email (which is normally the case in these types of lawsuits). And, as such, it makes sense. The attorney-client privilege should be seen as one that has an incredibly high barrier. Any weakening of that privilege -- such as by saying that if you email your lawyer from work, it doesn't exist -- would be troubling. But what would be more interesting is what would happen in a lawsuit where it was the employer looking at the material. If a company has a regular program of recording and examining employee email (as many do), then how would the issue be resolved? It would seem that, in such circumstances, it would make a lot less sense to consider the content protected, since the employer is not asking for it, but already has access to it.

In related news, however, the Supreme Court will be hearing a case that looks at whether or not your text messages are private, even if sent from company mobile phones.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Court Rules That Using Domain Registration Privacy Services Represents 'Material Falsification'

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

Lots of people use private registration services for domain names, that lets them register a domain name while keeping their own identities private. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to do so: they don't want spam or they want to keep the identity of the site owners anonymous. However, in a recent spam lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals has said that using such a service is "material falsification" of information:

[P]rivate registration is a service that allows registration of a domain name in a manner that conceals the actual registrant's identity from the public absent a subpoena. We fail to perceive any vagueness on this point. Based on the plain meaning of the relevant terms discussed above, private registration for the purpose of concealing the actual registrant's identity would constitute "material falsification." Defendants assert that many innocent people who privately register without the requisite intent may be subject to investigation for violation of § 1037 until their intent can be determined, allowing for abuse by enforcement authorities. This may be so, but it does not make the statute unconstitutionally vague.
While CAN SPAM requires a combination of both material falsification and intent to send spam, it does open up some questions about potential legal problems for anyone who uses such a private registration service in a variety of lawsuits (if those lawsuits are in the Ninth Circuit, of course). The court does seem to admit that this could cause problems, but the job of the court isn't to stop those problems, just to interpret the law.

Separately, in the same lawsuit, the court ruled that the appropriate "community" for judging obscenity standards in email is the "national community" rather than the local community. I have enough problems with the whole "community standards" method of judging "obscenity" in the first place (well, I have trouble with "obscenity" laws entirely), but if you have to have them, it does seem that a national standard makes more sense than a local standard when it comes to email that could go to anyone in any community. As Thomas O'Toole notes in his writeup, the ruling is a bit of a mess, and should keep First Amendment lawyers busy (though, the same is true of any obscenity laws...).

11 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Google Taken To Court To Explain Why It Shut Down Someone's Gmail Over Missent Email

from the explanation-please dept

Paul Alan Levy writes "Last month, you wrote about the travesty perpetrated by Rocky Mountain Bank when it sued Google to shut down the gmail account of a Google customer to whom the bank had mistakenly emailed a pile of customer records. Equally disturbing was the way that Google -- which is usually pretty good about standing up to subpoenas for customer identity -- just rolled over and obeyed the court's order even though a second's review of the company's ex parte arguments to the court showed both that the bank never explained what the Gmail customer did wrong, never explained how Google could be sued in the face of 47 USC 230, and never showed that there was diversity jurisdiction.

So we have gone back to court, representing MediaPost Communications, arguing that Google's report to the Court, showing its compliance, is a judicial record that should have been, and now must be, filed publicly. We agree of course that any actual customer identification in the compliance report should be redacted."


This is a tricky issue. After all, Google, as a private company, has the right to shut down an email account on its own. But, seeing as this was all a part of a legal case, with a number of questionable elements, it does seem like the information that led to the account being shut down should be a part of the public record.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Google Destroyed Missent Bank Info Email Unopened... As More Legal Questions Are Raised

from the still-doesn't-make-sense dept

Last week, Google was ordered to deactivate someone's Gmail account, because Rocky Mountain Bank had totally screwed up and sent the Gmail account holder an email by accident, which contained all sorts of confidential information. It's still not at all clear how Rocky Mountain Bank made such a monumental screw up, but we'll leave that aside for now. On Monday, the two companies asked the judge for permission to restore the email, after they realized that the email in question had never been opened, and Google had deleted it from its servers. Case closed?

Well... not so fast. Paul Alan Levy, from Public Citizen, sees a number of serious problems with the whole episode, starting with the legal complaint in the first place -- which offered no opportunity for the email account user to speak up and argue for his or her own rights, against having the account deactivated. But just the legal proceedings themselves suffered from some serious problems:

First, the complaint. Rocky's complaint is based on the contention that, having botched its obligation to keep its own customers information secret, it was obligated under various state and federal banking regulations to seek to recover the information and prevent its further dissemination. The complaint further alleges that regulatory officials expressed their endorsement of efforts by the Bank to protect the confidentiality of the information. The complaint sought a declaratory judgment that Rocky Mountain was entitled to information about the account holder, and that Google was obligated to prevent use of the information sent to the account. It sought an injunction enjoining Google and the account holder from accessing or distributing the information mistakenly sent to the email account, and compelling Google to identify the account holder. But curiously absent from the complaint was any allegation about how either Google or the owner of the gmail account had violated the plaintiff's rights, or any assertion of a cause of action against either Google or the anonymous account holder, that would form the basis for granting relief against either. Nor did Rocky Mountain's papers explain why section 230 of the Communications Decency Act entitled it to bring an action against Google, or to obtain any relief against Google, even assuming that it had a claim against the gmail account holder. Without a cause of action and without a violation of the plaintiff's rights, why was Rocky Mountain entitled to relief, and why should the defendants be subjected to an injunction? Neither the complaint, nor the brief in support of the TRO, explains this.

Second, the lack of federal court jurisdiction. Although the complaint identified only Google as a defendant, Rocky Mountain asked for relief against the anonymous gmail account holder, which is obviously, therefore, a defendant just as Google was. Indeed, if either Google or the account holder was the right defendant here, it is the account holder. But this poses a serious problem, because the law is clear that a Doe defendant cannot be sued under diversity jurisdiction. If there had been any party with any incentive to protect the Doe's rights in this case, that party could have pointed this jurisdictional defect out to the Court, which would therefore have been obligated to dismiss the case instead of issuing a TRO.
Oops. And, from there, Levy also wonders why Google was so quick to roll over without trying to defend the user's rights:
Rocky Mountain's papers recount that it asked Google for help freezing the account and identifying the account holder but that Google refused to do so without "a valid third party subpoena or other appropriate legal process." Yet despite the filing of plainly defective papers, there is no indication in the publicly filed papers that Google either opposed the requested order or insisted that it be given the opportunity to notify the Doe gmail user so that he or she could obtain counsel and oppose the requested order. Nor do the papers contain any discussion of efforts to notify either Google or the anonymous user about the requested order, even though Rule 65(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires either notice to the parties sought to be enjoined, or a compelling explanation of why notice was not possible. (Because the Bank noticed the problem on August 13, and waited until September 17 to file its suit, it is hard to believe that a few more days' delay to give proper notice would have been catastrophic). And within a day of the issuance of the order (one day before the compliance deadline), Google provided the court with a document explaining how it had complied with the TRO and asked, jointly with Rocky Mountain, that the TRO be vacated.
Indeed. It's certainly understandable why everyone wanted to make sure the data was not compromised, and in this case, it sounds like the account in question was probably inactive or rarely used (or the email went to spam). So everything may have ended up okay. But that's no excuse for potential violations of an individual's rights in trying to correct a mistake by the bank.

47 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Google, Rocky Mountain Bank Ask Judge To Restore Deactivated Gmail Account

from the bring-'er-back dept

Last week, we noted that a court had ordered Google to shut down a Gmail account of a user who had accidentally been emailed confidential information by Rocky Mountain Bank. The two companies have now both asked the judge to reinstate the Gmail account, saying that the original request is now "moot." The article notes that the judge has adjourned the case until next week, so the account will remain deactivated until then. Still, it's not at all clear why the issue is now "moot." Did Google delete the email in question? Was it determined that the account itself was dormant? It would seem like these details are relevant, and not anything that would need to be hidden.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Google Ordered To Shut Down Gmail Account Of User Who Received Unsolicited Banking Info

from the well-that-sucks dept

Yesterday, we wrote about Google being taken to court because Rocky Mountain Bank screwed up and sent confidential information to the wrong person's gmail account. It's still not clear why they were sending confidential info to anyone's gmail account, let alone to the wrong person's. The bank tried to contact the person at the email address, but had no luck. They asked Google about who it was, but Google refused without a court order. However, the court has gone even further, and ordered Google to deactivate the entire account. While you can absolutely understand why the bank wants the account shut down, to protect that info, it's quite troubling that someone's email account just gets deactivated, despite them doing absolutely nothing wrong. Especially in an era when people rely on their email accounts for all sorts of important things, having a judge deactivate the account of someone who did nothing wrong seems quite problematic. Yes, the bank screwed up. And yes, lots of information was potentially exposed, but that should be the bank's problem -- and not the email recipient's.

75 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
bank, email, identity, privacy, security

Companies:
google, rocky mountain bank

Bank Sends Confidential Email To Wrong Address, Hauls Google To Court To Figure Out Who Got The Email

from the grab-some-popcorn dept

Everyone does it at some point: you send an email to the wrong person. Hopefully the content isn't that bad or important -- but it happens. However, when a Wyoming bank, Rocky Mountain Bank, accidentally sent confidential and sensitive information to the wrong Gmail account, the bank ended up taking Google to court to find out the identity of the individual. The bank had tried emailing the wrong address again, but got no response. Google, naturally, refused to just give up the name of the person without a court order -- so the bank went to court. It also tried to have the case sealed, but the judge has rejected that idea. You can certainly understand the bank's concern here, but it does seem a bit silly to have to bring someone else to court after you screwed up and sent the wrong email.

47 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, hack

In Case You Didn't Know... People Hack Email Accounts All The Time

from the public-service-announcements dept

Almost exactly a decade ago, we wrote about how it was quite easy for people to get passwords from AOL users. Somehow, somewhere, for many years, that post was one of the top results for people searching on "steal AOL passwords," meaning that (to this date) it's been one of our most commented on posts, with tons of clueless individuals asking in the comments how to steal someone's password. So, it wasn't much of a surprise to me to find out that there are a bunch of services out there doing a brisk business in selling the ability to hack email accounts for about $100 per account (cheaper in some cases), and there really isn't that much to be done about it. It's not a big enough problem for authorities to really care about. Even if they did crack down, it wouldn't stop the activity at all -- others would quickly pop up offering the same thing. Still, it's fascinating to see how blatant some of the services are in advertising their wares. You would think that they'd try to be at least a little subtle. However, I guess with so little likelihood of getting in trouble for it, those offering such services don't see any advantage in not being upfront.

21 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, france, surveillance, three strikes

Will France's Three Strikes Law Also Allow Gov't Email Surveillance?

from the that-doesn't-seem-good dept

With the effort underway to have Sarkozy's new "three strikes" law approved in France, much of the focus has been on the slightly ridiculous five minute rule it gives to judges reviewing charges of copyright infringement online. An anonymous reader points us to a much more worrisome issue: that the law appears to sneak in provisions that allow for email surveillance by the government. The Senator pushing the law seems to see no problem at all with this, suggesting that it's fine to read through the emails of anyone "stealing intellectual property." Privacy rights apparently mean little to some in France.

23 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
ads, email, links, trademark

Companies:
mary kay, yahoo

Mary Kay Sues Yahoo For Inserting Ad Links In Emails

from the trademark-fun dept

We've seen way too many lawsuits involving companies suing search engines for trademark infringement due to paid search adveritisng, but the latest lawsuit is a bit different. It appears that Mary Kay (who has a long history of being an aggressive enforcer of trademark) has sued Yahoo because of the way it inserts ads in email. Apparently Yahoo employs that incredibly annoying process of hotlinking certain text words to pop up advertisements. I've seen this on various websites (now blocked thanks to No Script) but I didn't realize Yahoo used the same annoying process in email as well. Mary Kay claims that this is confusing, and this actually does raise some interesting legal questions. First of all, I could see how some people might actually be confused by these sorts of ad links. While they usually look a little different than a real hyperlink, unless you're paying attention, you might get confused and think it's a normal link, rather than an ad. But that just speaks to confusion over what the link is. Once you hover over it, it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that it's an ad. I have a lot more trouble believing that it would then confuse many users. That said, even if it is confusing, there's a question as to whether or not Yahoo should actually be liable for any confusion. After all, it's just using an automated system to insert these ads. I might argue that it's obnoxious, annoying and unnecessarily intrusive, but it's not clear that it should be illegal.

32 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, indicator, trouble

Companies:
enron

Can Email Patterns Predict When Companies Are In Trouble?

from the neat dept

Here's an interesting study. Apparently, looking at the email patterns (not the content) of organizations may enable one to "predict impending doom." The researchers looked at Enron emails, and found that about a month before everything went bad, there was a sudden and rapid increase in the number of "active email cliques, defined as groups in which every member has had direct email contact with every other member." The number of such groups increased by a factor of eight. Not surprisingly, the messages between these cliques increased in frequency as well, and those message were rarely shared with people outside the clique. In other words, a bunch of rapid task groups came together about a month before everything got screwed up.

Of course, the data is only on one particular company, and there's nothing to indicate whether this pattern is really that common elsewhere. It wouldn't surprise me, but it would be nice if there were more data to back it up. Of course, that's difficult, because there aren't that many companies willing to share such data. Still, it's always neat to see attempts to pick out interesting predictive behavior from areas where you wouldn't necessarily expect it.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Student Found Guilty Of 'Disturbing The Peace' For Sending Nasty Political Email To Professor

from the wow dept

As we all know, online debates can spiral out of control pretty quickly -- with name calling and people quickly jumping to extremes. This is especially true in the political arena, where various positions are stereotyped and extreme passions come out quickly. I tend to find such discussions tiresome. However, they occur all the time (occasionally here in our own comments). But could you consider such a conversation disturbing the peace? It appears that's exactly what happened to a student in Nebraska who had a rather nasty political email exchange with a professor.

The student and the professor exchanged a series of emails over a short period of time. The two were at opposite ends of the political spectrum (which side was which, honestly, doesn't and shouldn't matter), and the student used some nasty language and accused the professor of being a traitor among other things. To be honest, if you've spent any time in online political discussions, this really isn't particularly out of the ordinary -- and (somewhat amazingly) after a back-and-forth exchange where the professor asked the student to stop emailing him and noting how insulted he was by the emails, the student did send a long apologetic email, telling the professor he was sorry that he got so riled up, and he really liked the professor and just wanted to debate someone intelligent who viewed the world from a very different perspective.

A few months went by, and then the professor received two anonymous emails from a new Yahoo email address that used the professor's name as part of the address (the username was "averylovesalqueda"), again ranting politically against the professor. The professor found the emails threatening and turned them over to the police. The police eventually tracked the emails down to the same student who was then charged with disturbing the peace. Yes. Disturbing the peace. For sending a nasty email.

First Amendment scholars look out. Who knew that sending a private ranting email could disturb the peace?

Amazingly, a lower court and now the appeals court agreed and the student has been convicted of disturbing the peace for sending those emails. The court even claims that the email address itself is libelous which seems quite difficult to square with reality. No one would look at that email address and assume that it was actually from the professor in question, and there's no indication that anyone outside of the professor himself ever saw the email address in question. O'Toole, in his post, puts the blame not on the judges, but on the student, who chose to defend himself, and appears to have done a pretty poor job of it, now leaving this ruling to be used as a citation in other cases. This is bad news no matter how you look at it. Even granting O'Toole's premise that the student is at fault for defending himself (and doing such a poor job of it), it's still bothersome that a judge wouldn't take basic First Amendment rights into consideration here.

35 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Wireless

Wireless

by Derek Kerton


Filed Under:
attention, email, meetings, mobile email

In Defense Of Mobile E-Mail 'Addiction'

from the Best-Use-Of-Your-Time dept

There is an interesting Reuters article about how former NY state Democratic Majority Leader Malcolm Smith had a meeting scheduled with billionaire Tom Golisano, a major political fund contributor. (Eschewing the issue of how political contributions are accepted without question, as paid access to our elected officials,) the article describes how Mr. Smith spent enough time on his Blackberry to offend Golisano. The billionaire has clout, and subsequently engineered the ouster of Smith. The article's true focus, then, is how dangerous it is for people to use their mobile email devices during meetings, during social engagements, in the car with family, etc. It points out how rude it can be, and also point out how it can actually be less efficient, because a person's attention is split.

That is all true, but whenever one of these opinion pieces comes out, it ignores the other case: that oftentimes at meetings, our attention simply isn't necessary or productive. In any given multi-person meeting, for what % of the time is each person's participation and attention truly productive? Is every topic related to you? Could a quick check of email be more productive? I would argue that optimal participation is usually less than 100%. Same goes for conferences: Sometimes the conference agenda will include a speaker that is just not very relevant to your individual interests. Yes, you could learn something by listening, but perhaps you could be more productive by responding to your clients, staff, or boss on your mobile device. I've met a few people who take offense at every sighting of a Blackberry, but that's usually attached to a big ego that takes offense too easily. Not every word you say is golden, or even directed at me. In a one on one meeting, obviously one should be focused on the person in front, and one should not feign listening while actually reading. But in multi-party meetings, there are good opportunities to mentally duck out. A blanket Blackberry backlash isn't well-reasoned. As in most debates, a balance needs to be struck.

Derek Kerton is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Derek Kerton and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

27 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
david kernell, email, hacking, sarah palin

Palin Email Hacker Says Emails Were Public Record... So No Crime?

from the legal-twists-and-turns dept

Last year, we noted two separate problems with trying to prosecute the guy accused of figuring out Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account password and posting it to the internet. First, the Justice Department has stood behind a position that opened emails are not private, based on a very literal reading of the law (you can check the link to understand the reasoning). Second, the law used to charge the guy specifically said that it was only a felony if it was used to further a criminal activity. That is, the hacking, by itself, wouldn't be seen as a crime unless it was a part of a larger criminal activity -- which it wasn't. Prosecutors changed the charges earlier this year to address that -- claiming that the criminal activity was a violation of Palin's privacy.

The accused guy, David Kernell, and his lawyers are trying a variety of different defenses (not surprisingly, of course), including claiming that Palin's privacy was not violated, because Palin's emails were a public record because (due to a separate lawsuit) a court had ruled that Palin was required to preserve her Yahoo account email. Because of this, the argument goes, the emails are part of the public record (which, given the first DOJ definition above, could fit under the DOJ's interpretation of the law). It's difficult to see this line of reasoning succeeding directly, as it seems to defy common sense, so it would be surprising if a judge bought into it.

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

College Threatens Students Who Use College Initials In Private Email Addresses

from the too-much-free-time dept

Slashdot alerted us to the bizarre story that Santa Rosa Junior College was supposedly sending out threatening emails to students and staff who used private email accounts that included the initials SRJC (so, for example, using nameSRJC@gmail.com or whatever). Oddly the original article pointed to has been taken down (though, the comments remain...). But, the same newspaper has published another article where the school stands by the policy and says it will continue to crack down on the "misuse" of its name... though it says it won't take anyone to court, despite the threat letter saying "to avoid any future legal action..."

The school officials still don't see why it's a big deal that they're threatening students. However, their reasoning makes very little sense. "The reason for it is so the college doesn't get misrepresented in some way or make it look like the college is endorsing a product or issue," according to Santa Rosa Junior College President Robert Agrella. But that makes no sense. If a student uses an actual address from the university, wouldn't that risk be much greater? In other words, does the college really think that it's a bigger risk for someone to say something that the college does not endorse from nameSRCJ@gmail.com or name@santarosa.edu? Because it seems fine with the latter, but not the former. The whole thing smacks of college administrators who don't understand technology and have way too much free time on their hands.

27 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
app store, email, gmail, iphone

Google Routing Around The iPhone App Store?

from the sneaky-and-smart dept

With all of the iPhone App Store press love these days, it's almost easy to forget that Apple refused to allow any outside apps on the phone when it first launched -- instead, telling developers that anything they wanted to do can and should be done via a browser, creating mini-apps that were all web-technology-based. Of course, now that the App Store gets so much attention, plenty of folks have forgotten about designing web-based apps for the iPhone... but not everyone. Google has designed a new version of Gmail that routes around Apple's command-and-control App Store process by going direct via the web. While the article linked here seems to make this out to be a big deal, it seems like the only really big deal is the fact that everyone forgot this was the way Apple originally planned for apps to be handled on the phone.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Carlo Longino


Filed Under:
bacn, email, noise, spam

97% Of All Email Is Spam, But How Much Of The Other 3% Is Just Noise?

from the overwhelmed dept

A new report from Microsoft says that 97 percent of all email is spam, reflecting the degree to which email systems worldwide are swamped with the messages. The figure seems high, but perhaps that's just because anti-spam tools have gotten better at deflecting spam away from most people's inboxes. But clearly enough is still getting through -- and enough people are buying what it's selling -- to make it financially worthwhile for spammers. Personally, I don't see too much spam these days, as Gmail's filter works pretty well for me. But what I do see lots of is "soft" spam -- messages that come from web services, retailers, mailing lists and thanks to writing on the web, PR people. Most of these messages come from things with which I've had some sort of relationship, commercial or otherwise, in the past, but most of them are still uninteresting and unwanted. While many of these people are pretty good about honoring unsubscribe requests, many are not, and also seem to share my email address with impunity. The result is that my email account is full of noise -- while my inbox isn't overrun by V1*GRA-type spam, all the other soft spam, as well as the bacn, or messages I've subscribed to but never read, obfuscate the messages I actually care about, making email a pain to deal with.

The point here isn't really to complain about my inbox, but rather to illustrate how even as "real" spam becomes more and more hidden from many users, email still has plenty of problems. Eliminating the 419 scams, joe-jobs, fake drug spam and the like would certainly be great, but even beyond that, email still has its flaws, leading people to communicate through IM, social networks and other means. To be sure, email is still eminently useful, but will that usefulness soon be outweighed by its detriments? And will it be salvageable?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

25 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Social Networks Now More Popular Than Email, Report Says

from the you've-got-a-poke dept

A new report says that "member communities" -- sites like social networks and blogs -- are now more popular than email. The Nielsen report says that two out of three internet users, in the eight countries it tracks, visit social sites more than email sites visit member communities, a higher percentage than use email. Though usage remains behind search, portal and PC software sites, the social-site usage is growing at a far faster pace than any of them. The methodology here is a bit odd, and the classifications of sites not immediately clear, but, if anything, the report underlines how users' online time, as well as their communication, is shifting towards social networks and, perhaps, away from email. This makes sense: as more and more people are spending more and more time inside social networks, it follows that they'll communicate within them, rather than outside them via email. Email still has tremendous value, but also brings plenty of problems, from spam to annoying reply-all responses. As long as in-social-network communication can improve on this experience and offer benefits over email, its use will continue to grow. But that advantage can be fleeting, particularly as problems like spam move to social networks. If social network-based communication becomes as polluted as email, it can't expect to hold its popularity for long.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, spam

Can The Solution To Spam Be Hoax Spam?

from the creative...-but... dept

Kevin Stapp points us to a proposal by Glyn Moody that one way to tackle the spam problem is to have the government send out more spam itself. Yes, it sounds crazy at first, but there's more to the plan. The basic idea is that the sort of folks who fall for spam are likely to click on the links found in this "fake" spam as well -- and we'd then use that as an opportunity to "educate" those poor deluded fools to stop clicking on spam links or responding to spam emails. The good thing about this plan is that it's one of the very, very few anti-spam ideas out there that actually focuses on the real problem: that spam works. There are still people out there who respond to spam. Where it gets more questionable, though, is in figuring out whether or not this plan would work. The people who regularly fall for spam don't seem all that likely to "learn" from such actions. While a few might, I'd guess that most won't -- and the additional burden on email networks hardly seems worth it to convert a few clueless emailers over to the bright side.

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Email

Email

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
email, reply-all

Companies:
nielsen

Companies Disabling 'Reply-All' Button, Rather Than Dealing With Inane Email Threads

from the one-way-to-deal-with-the-problem dept

Last month, the US State Department made plenty of news for threatening to punish employees who misused the "reply-all" button on their email clients. That, by itself, seemed a bit extreme, but Jeremy Wagstaff alerts us to the fact that some organizations are going a step further and figuring out ways to disable the reply-all button entirely. The latest to do so is Nielsen, which did so with a cheery memo to staff explaining why this would "reduce non-essential messages in mailboxes, freeing up our time as well as server space." That's one way to think about it.

35 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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12:39pm: No, Copyright Has Never Been About Protecting Labor (177)
11:20am: USTR Insists Gov't Isn't Keeping ACTA Secret (56)
10:13am: Springsteen Pissed At ASCAP For Implying He Instigated Lawsuit Against Pub; Demands His Name Removed (39)
9:09am: Microsoft Exec Calls For 'Driver's License For The Internet' (103)
7:58am: NBC Universal Boss Jeff Zucker Lies To Congress About Boxee (98)
6:45am: Copyright Industry Responds To iiNet Ruling By Asking For Gov't Bailout; Aussie Gov't 'Studying' It (121)
5:13am: Is Spotify Looking To Enable CwF+RtB For Musicians? (18)
3:12am: ADM Says Video Mocking Them Is Copyright Infringement; Abuses Copyright Law To Stifle Free Speech (50)
1:17am: University Help Desk Employee Extorts Student Using Copyright (21)

Thursday

10:49pm: UK's Digital Economy Bill Does Promote New Music... But It's Songs Against The Bill (22)
8:48pm: You Can't Get Rid Of Anonymity Online, Even If You Wanted To (85)
6:47pm: Book Publishing Industry Just Now Realizing That Change Is Turbulent? (20)
5:05pm: This Has To Be A Joke: Music Duo Claims It Won't Sell CDs Again Until 'Piracy' Is Stopped (143)
3:55pm: JetBlue To Most Loyal Customers: We're Too Busy To Help You, Sorry (41)
2:45pm: Company Decides To Run For Congress (37)
1:40pm: Wal-Mart, Target Trying To Block Redbox From Purchasing DVDs? (43)
12:34pm: USPTO Rejects Submission Because It Was Faxed 'Upside Down' (41)
11:34am: Writers Of 'Back Pockets On The Floor' Claim 'Pants On The Ground' Ripped Them Off... (17)
10:22am: Decision In iiNet Case Explains Why ISPs Cannot Effectively Be Copyright Cops (60)
9:11am: South Butt Responds To North Face As Only It Could (20)
8:01am: Australian Court Says Men At Work's 'Down Under' Infringes On Folk Song; Only Took Decades To Notice (47)
6:43am: Artist Sues Photographer For Transformative Photo Of Public Artwork, Even Though Photographer Took Down The Photo (35)
4:41am: TV Station Issuing DMCA Takedowns To Try To Hide Weatherman Making A Bad Joke (36)
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