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From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Class Action Suit Against Epson Charges Email Spying
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Date: 26 Aug 90 04:44:21 GMT
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On Aug 25 at 19:46, TELECOM Moderator writes:

> Epson responds that the suit is entirely unfounded, and I agree with
> that assessment. The right to privacy in email or on the telephone
> means privacy on computers *you own or control* (i.e. lease or rent a
> mailbox, etc), and on telephone lines *you pay for*.

My initial reaction to all of this was, "Pat, lighten up. People
shouldn't have their private mail read." And then I remembered the
days of owning a "real" business myself. And then I started to steam.

There really is an attitude that saturates the workplace. The
assumption is that employees have some god-given right to use the
communications facilities of their employer for personal messages.
Facing ever escalating telephone bills, we decided to investigate and
possibly crack down on personal calls. We started with a memo that
re-stated company policy that personal calls were not permitted.
Further, any calls so detected would be charged back to the employee
and repeated abuse could result in termination.

So we fired up the SMDR and set a scan for calls over five minutes in
length. A hodge-podge of what we discovered:

The sales manager lived in Sacramento and apparently had to call the
wife several times a day. A service rep would wyle away the (slow)
hours by chatting with a friend in San Francisco. The general manager
(!) conducted her Werner Erhard volunteer business off and on all day
long.

You should have heard the squeals when we put the hard copy in front
of these people. Offers to pay were ignored -- my company was not in
the telecom reselling business. The point was: we wanted people to
stop using the bloody phone for personal business. It blocked REAL
calls, distracted the person from doing his job cheating us out of the
time we were paying for, and the cost of the calls took the money out
of our pockets.

Everywhere I have gone, people treat the phone on their desk as their
own personal service. It also happens to be handy for use in their
work. Oh well, who wouldn't want to save 100% on his long distance
calls?


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
    john@bovine.ati.com     | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


[Moderator's Note: Thanks for your input on this. The same thing is
true of computer terminals and email systems. Most companies overlook
a small amount of personal phone calls and a small amount of personal
email. But when the employees take the attitude it is their property,
and that the employer has no right to see or know what is being done
with his phones and his computer, then the time is ripe for a
crackdown on personal calls and email, cutting out or restricting this
privilege for everyone. I suspect what will happen at Epson once the
suit is dismissed or the employees lose is that Epson might will go on
the warpath and cut out all personal use of their facilities. So all
employees will suffer from the arrogance of a few. 

And speaking of arrogance, is it true that Los Angeles attorney Noel
Shipman, representing the handful of *former* employees of Epson who
brought this suit named all present Epson employees as members of the
class? Is it true he has received demands from *very angry* current
employees demanding to have themselves removed from the class, saying
'you do not represent me in anything'?  Just asking.  PAT]