Ethics Problem - Advice Please

I don't see any reason to pass it a long. If he is not with your company anymore, why care what has happened? If he is still with your company, then any emails coming in or out of your network belong to your company, in this case give it to your boss.

your company has the right to do with it's email as it pleases. On the other hand, the sending client has the right to privacy which is spelled out in the caveat you mentioned.
I would reply to it that the employee is no longer with your Co, and inform the client that the email will be deleted. Your boss and anyone else in the Co has no right or need to see it (if the client was not stolen from your Co's client list) , and passing it on could get you in hot water if anything is done with theinformation by a third party.

You should feel positive to respect your company's ethics. Your company's resources and content belongs to your company. It is your company's responsibility to know what all ex- or employee did under the name of "the company".

Each individual must be respected, and the business entity.

The company owns the domain, so all mail it must have access to. Each alias offers uniqueness, as the alias has been removed, the content must surely belong to the domain.

But the content cannot be mis-used on a personal level niether by yourself nor the manager; but solely the "representative".

Based on my revised currencies of society, the above stands to be of true character.

Hope it helps!

TSP

I would normally return the e-mail to the sender as undeliverable.

In this situation, there is one other thing to consider;
Is the sender a current or former customer of your firm?

If no, you have no reason to forward the mail within your company.

If yes, then the legal issues get a lot thornier.
Closely read your companies non-disclosure and / or non-competition agreement that most employees are required to sign.
If you suspect that the former employee may be violating the agreement, contact human resources for advice on how to proceed.

Chas

The one thing everyone missed is that the disclaimer is not legally binding. The email was sent to your company's domain by the sender without any request on your end. As soon as it entered your system, it became your company's property. You never signed nor consented to any such agreement, therefore it is the same as unsolicted snail mail - you can do with it whatever you want to. I would let the sender know he no longer works there and delete it.

Ralph

This person is a former employee. When employees leave, I put their name as a alias in a dead mail box. The box has a 0 file limit. Thus, all mail is kicked back, and none is saved. Execpt, I get a copy as an "undeliverable" message.

I think whathappened, the person used an old email address for this guy, so it came to us. His fault. He receiced notice of an undeliverable message.

Yes, it came to our domain in our office. It does belong to us. But also, the sender is, or could be, a client of ours. If it concerns an ongoing bid, it could be relevant to us.

We're a small company, so we have no HR department, or any department. I'm inclined to take this to my boss, give it to him and let him make the decision.

If on his departure from your company, signed a non-compete clause then run this email past your lawyers only. But if this person that departed, has nothing binding to the company - than your mission is clear - "Delete the Message".

You said thesender should of gotten the message as undelieverable - so there is nothing else you can do -

It's not an ethical issue - its a legal one.. The stamp at the bottom of the message states what you can do with that message....Period.

Another quote:

“Email messages are not safe! They go over many points (routers, switches etc) in Wider Area Networks and over the Internet where they can be seen by network supervisors (and hackers). A disclaimer can only create a false sense of security whilst in fact you may be breaking Data Protection regulations by transmitting personal data. Hands up those those who have not sent a message to the wrong person or the wrong attachment. Having a disclaimer does not prevent a message from being intercepted, nor being read by the wrong recipient - nor being used against you in a court of law. The most a disclaimer can hope to achieve is to notify the recipient (or interceptor) that the contents are confidential.”

http://www.somis.dundee.ac.uk/general/wizards/emaildis.html#Safeguard

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Just for grins, do an Internet search of, “intended solely for the attention and use of the named”, and look at how many saved - and published - emails you’ll be reading.

There’s no way a disclaimer like this could hold an employee libel or accountable for anything. Actually, the sender of an email with such a disclaimer who actually thinks it would have any "teeth" should be held lible for being naive.

If you have any doubts about acting in the “best interest” of your company, talk to the boss.

This almost seems like a question of morals rather than legality.
Most people understand that on the Internet, anything goes and there is little or nothing that can be done about peoples opinions.
(The whold freedom of speech and expression thingy)
In you case, I would return the mesage to the sender but instead of a "sorry it couldn't be delivered" message, canvass the prospect yourself.

Dear sir/madam, we regret to inform you that "JOE BLOW" no longer works for our company. Should you require our services, please contact XXXXXXX or reply with an email stating the following (gather whatever info you need to quote on the job).

This is hard for the sender to get mad about because the mail was sent to your company. Even if addressed to an employee, the mail is still received by your company at you company's domain, therefore it is company mail and you have a right to read it.

Ex. If a current customer was sending a request to an employee of your company who was no longer there and you didn't reply, the company may lose a customer.

Who knows you may get to quote competitively, if not at least the sender knows that you were following up on potential business and will let it slide.

Thanks to all. I knew if I asked, someone would bring up the concept I was missing.

I think that the disclaimers don't count for much. Email is NOT secure, by nature and by law. That's probably the way we want it, (at least for now).

What I did was forward the email to someone in the company higher up the food chain to look at. I knew thay would understand the technical aspects as it relates to our business, and know if the email should go higher or not.

After he looked at it, he said it was meaningless to us and to delete it. He added that if I want to be polite, I could send a message to them stating that the person nolonger works here. Someone else suggested that.

That's the next point. The sender already got a message that the mailbox did not exist. Fine. It's automated. But, if I take the trouble to send a personal email stating that I got and read the email, could that put us on shakey legal ground? If they have a contract problem down the road, could they come back and somhow blame us, since we received and read the email? An email from me would be proof. I decided it wouldn't be worth the trouble, so I didn't send one.

Even though the email was sent to that individual, the email address probably has your company name in it. If the work was so screwed up I would send an email to the sender stating that person does not work there and the work done had nothing to dowith your company. You do not want a tarnished image if they have any future IT work out for bids.

I believe You should not disseminate the information in the e-mail to anyone but the sender. While I am not aware of any court ruling on e-mail, using the models of US-mail or radio transmissions you may not make any use of a communication to which you were not an intended recipient

I consider the domain name to be the equivalent of a street address. If a letter was addressed to Joe Blow, 123 Anystreet, Thistown Pa 54321; and that was the address of your company, that does not give you the right to tamper with the mail if you are not Joe Blow or his agent. If Joe Blow was your employee in the past you are entitled to determine if the letter was sent to Joe Blow as an agent of your company but if not you may not make any use of the contents, doing so is a clear violation of law.

If you receive a radio message intended for someone else, making any use of the contents of the message is a violation of federal law.

For those that think the domain name implies ownership, does AOL have the right to read and use all e-mail addressed to an address such as anyuser@aol.com?

There is an old saying: "Avoid even the appearance of evil." But who would know the intent the sender of the e-mail might have? And so, the point is that many may follow the letter of the law (legalism), but disregard the intent. Who would spend themoney to prosecute, even if there were legal ramifications about the context of the email? Was anyone hurt? Did a finger become missing or an eye get plucked out? If the intent was to harm, there is a moral responsibility to place the letter in the right basket; if you perceive the intent was non-malicious, you would be a coward to bring attention to yourself to glorify your own self-serving interests: delete the mail and go on. Many times we are personally responsible for the knowledge we comeby, on purpose or by accident, and we are accountable for that knowledge (the more knowledge, the more grief). But our consciences must remain clear after we make a decision that sometimes no one else but us can make as individuals. I suspect, as the Administrator---who has already shared that he is leaning in a certain direction--- knows the answer his heart has wrestled with. If your intent is to do harm, your motives and your actions are wrong, but if your intentions are to do right, then your actions will follow rightly.

As an administrator u hav d right/privilege/responsibility on what goes on the company's email/web/domain server.

The Mgmt has the right to know any info that pass through their network infrastructure that is related to their business (almost allthings).

That is the reason y it is strictly forbidden/avoided/advised against using company mail for 'personal use'. By choosing to use the company mail for personal agenda, the users automatically forfeits his/her rights for privacy.