[Air-l] ethics - aol data

[Richard Forno]

> About a year ago Nancy Bayme wrote that an email sent to someone is the
> property of the sender.

I don't recall seeing that item cross the list, but I'd be curious to the
reasoning behind it.  I'll try and check the AOIR-L archive.

>From a conceptual view, I can understand trying to espouse a theoretical
view how the case could be made that an e-mail message is a "product" and
therefore its author retains any copyright/ownership/rights to it, just like
any other piece of intellectual property.

But from a practical perspective, I think it's futile to even think one can
exert ownership of the bits-n-bytes of a message, copies of the message in
archive files, etc, etc, etc.  (Of course, not having read Nancy's remarks
on the matter yet, perhaps I am offering these views prematurely.)

> Also, if it is not the sender's property, to what extent is the receiver
> ethically, legally, or morally obligated to sender for the use of the
> content.

You mean when you encounter .sig files reading something like "This email
message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain
confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized use or disclosure
is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the
sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. "

FWIW, while I don't have any case laws to cite, the IT security folks /
computer crime investigators I work with generally feel such disclaimers are
intended more to reassure corporate muckety-mucks and their counsel than
present any real "teeth" for law enforcement purposes.

Compare these email .sigs with the use of login banners that inform folks
about privacy expectations, information ownership, etc.  That IS something
that's had legal merit in the courtroom for many years and oftentimes is the
first question asked by investigators to someone reporting a network
intrusion -- "do you use login banners?"  (An affirmative answer can
facilitate a prosecution in many cases.)  While I'm sure there's some legal
analysis done on e-mail .sigfiles, but at the moment I'm not aware of any.

Of course, ethically or morally, I feel it's pretty straightforward -- if
you send something to me by accident, I'll use common sense and ethical
judgement and let you know about it. (IMO that's just plain old fashioned
common courtesy.)  However, I sure won't go passing it around to others
without your permission.  But then agan maybe I'm just a nice person.
*shrugs*

Anyway, that's my .02 for the moment.

Cheers,

-rick