Will your place of employment be sued? Sexual Harassment lawsuits because of SPAM By Peter M. Abraham October 2003 If you want to know why Dynamic Net takes a very hard stance against SPAM, please consider the following: October 15, 2003 - E-mail porn a problem at work - By Tim Lemke of THE WASHINGTON TIMES: " Pornographic spam has become so widespread that many workers say it can contribute to a hostile work environment, a national survey says." "Many legal analysts said there is a growing belief that employers will be subjected to a wave of lawsuits if they don't implement systems to stop spam." "Spam, which generally is considered unsolicited commercial e-mail, makes up about half of all e-mail sent worldwide. Much of it is deceptive, pornographic or both, and costs businesses billions of dollars each year, several technology research groups said." Unfortunately, there's more to consider: Liability of E-Mail Overlooked by Companies : According to a recent survey of 1,100 employers, e-mail is playing an increasingly important role in workplace lawsuits and regulatory investigations. At the same time, employers are doing a poor job of managing their electronic records and preparing for the legal discovery process, the survey showed. The study was conducted by the New York-based American Management Association, the Columbus, Ohio-based ePolicy Institute, and London-based Clearswift. Five percent, or one out of every twenty respondents, said their organizations have faced a workplace lawsuit brought on by e-mail. Fourteen percent of employers said they have been ordered by a court or regulatory body to produce employee e-mail, up from 9 percent reported in a similar study by AMA in 2001 of 435 companies. Despite the growing legal risks, only about half of the respondents (52 percent) monitor their employees' e-mail activity in any way. 9/01/03 Back in June 2003, the article titled, Porn spam--legal minefield for employers was authored by Declan McCullagh "WASHINGTON--Lewd e-mail promoting pornography may soon pose more than just a technical challenge in the ongoing fight against spam--experts say it's set to become an acute legal problem, too." "You have to provide a workplace that's free of sexual harassment. That right is so clearly established that no employer could say, 'I didn't know I had to do that,' if they're on notice about sex spam," said Michael Modl, an attorney who specializes in workplace harassment claims at the Madison, Wis., law firm of Axley Brynelson. All of this and more adds up to why we at Dynamic Net take fighting SPAM seriously. No agency can guarantee zero SPAM to your desktop; but that doesn't mean we will not try. Thank you.