Is communication sent through insecure email protocols protected by attorney-client privledge? There is a great article, EMAIL, PRIVILEGE, CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION AND INADVERTENT DISCLOSURES, written by Rebecca J. Foote of Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer & Gleser, LLP that outlines the legal community’s understanding as of 2003. Some interesting points:

• The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 was thought to allow unencrypted email to be used for privledged communications.
• Inadvertent disclosure is a grey area for email.

Courts have taken both fully waived (once inadvertantly disclosed the information is now public knowledge) and fully unwaived (receiving parties have to act as though they do not know the information exists), but the vast majority evaluate on a case-by-case basis. The center ground courts, Ms. Foote reports, generally look at:

1. The reasonableness of the precautions taken to prevent inadvertent disclosure
2. The time taken to rectify the error
3. The scope of discovery
4. The extent of the disclosure
5. The overriding issue of fairness

So, if unprotected email has attorney-client privlege attached, why do you need a confidential email solution like email2?

It goes to the first two points covered. In 2003 email encryption technology was complex and expensive. In 2008, the confidentiality provided by email2 is quick, simple and affordable to implement. This lowers the burden of implementation and increases the level of precautions taken to protect the information. Second, email2’s recall function means the unintended transmission can easily be retracted.

Finally, while privledge may still exist, it is meaningless for information presented to the press. In two highly publicized cases this year, lawyers for Eli Lili and State Farm sent confidential communication to reporters. Having a system in place that controls who receives an email, allows an inerant email to be recalled, and provides a complete report of who read the message and when protects client’s confidential information. And as Ms. Foote concluded, “The ‘best’ solution is to avoid the unintended dissemination of privileged or confidential information.”

CNET is running an article about getting Push Email on mobile devices. While the email2 Mobile Interface isn’t a Push system itself (for increased security purposes), it does integrate seamlessly with all of the Push services mentioned.

Read the rest of this entry »

The “Mail Goggles” feature available in Gmail Labs has been making headlines recently. It’s a half-serious option available to those who find themselves sending embarrassing emails after a few too many on Saturday nights. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been saying it for years, but it looks like the first wave of legislation is finally coming. This article from BaseLine Magazine says that companies in Nevada only have 3 years before a new law kicks in requiring them to encrypt all internet communications that contain personally identifiable information.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Financial Post has a story this week called E-mail protection: Outside the box. It’s a good overview of the basic architecture of “gateway” and “cloud” systems, but author Danny Bradbury makes it seem as though there are only two ways to protect your data.

Since we built email2 by thinking “outside the box,” we felt an explanation of how we differ from traditional cloud-based systems was in order.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oops! vnunet.com is reporting that the University of Salford ended up settling out of court for £110,000 after a lecturer sued them for libel.

Read the rest of this entry »

Computer World is running an article this week called Eight crazy e-mail hoaxes millions have fallen for. It’s full of greatest scams and hoaxes that have graced our inboxes during the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re reading this blog, you probably use email every day. In fact, you probably use email every hour. But how widespread is email use outside of our little techno-savvy bubble? Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a lot of approaches to the spam problem over the years. Some have met with success, others failure. One element of the current “good-enough” solution is server reputation monitoring. But as this article from InfoWorld points out, this approach has some very glaring weaknesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Message Labs published a survey of spam volume by country last month, which we thought was a novel way of looking at things. Turns out that the Swiss receive more spam than anybody else, with 84.4% of emails in Switzerland being spam (Compare this with 68.8% in the US, 77.8% in Canada and 74.3% in the UK). Read the rest of this entry »