E-MAIL MONITORING — II: A HARASSING CASE OF CONFUSING MESSAGES
✍ Scribed by Jonathan Tait
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2001
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 63 KB
- Volume
- 17
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0267-3649
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
E-mail misuse and sexual or racial harassment via E-mail are increasingly resulting in legal liability lawsuits. Multi-million dollar penalties appear to have grown in line with the growth of Internet usage itself, and the resultant damage to company reputation is immeasurable.
As examples: • N Ni is ss sa an n M Mo ot to or r C Co om mp pa an ny y.Two Nissan employees were fired for sending sexually explicit E-mail messages but subsequently sued for unfair dismissal, claiming violation of privacy. (Nissan won the lawsuit because it had an E-mail policy in place that prohibited the use of company-owned computer systems for non-company business. 1 ) • B BG G. Distribution firm BG paid out a $161 000 libel settlement to rival Transco, after a BG senior manager sent an Email, deemed to be defamatory, to Transco staff wrongly suggesting that Exoteric Gas Solutions (created by BG) had misused confidential information from Transco. 2 • C Ch he ev vr ro on n. In 1995, the Chevron Corporation, USA paid $2.2 million to four female employees after the women claimed they were sexually harassed with E-mail jokes. 3 • N No or rw wi ic ch h U Un ni io on n. Norwich Union Insurance made a £450 000 out of court settlement for alleged defamation by Email against Western Provident Association.