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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/thespamreport/0,39025001,39120300,00.htm

Porn spam could land EU firms in hot water
If you know its getting through, staff could sue…

By Reuters

Published: Wednesday 28 April 2004

Email porn spam in the workplace could land European employers in court for fostering a hostile work environment.

The broad wording of new European anti-spam legislation opens up a new breed of legal snares for Europe's corporate sector, according to Dutch researcher Lodewijk Asscher.

"European employers must be aware of the risk of new computer-related liabilities," said the researcher for the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law.

"An important example of such a potential new liability is the risk of being held accountable for not protecting employees against unsolicited pornographic email."

He advises companies that operate an email network to specifically inform users of the nature and content of spam and use filtering technology.

"Otherwise, an employer could be liable under European law for creating a hostile work environment," he told Reuters.

Employers have been held liable for failing to rid a workplace of defamatory or sexually explicit emails that circulate among or originate from its own employees.

Many legal experts believe courts will take a similar hard line on employers who fail to take appropriate measures to block racy spam messages from outsiders reaching their employees.

Jonathan Riley, a partner in Lawrence Graham's Commerce & Technology Team, likened pornographic spam to a defamatory message left on a company's kitchen bulletin board.

"If an employer knows it's getting through and is informed so by employees, and still does nothing about it, there could be a liability," Riley said.

Asscher drew his conclusion from a study he conducted on Europe's anti-spam legislation. But legal experts believe most countries' employment laws would also say employers must act against spam or face litigation.

Spam, or unsolicited email messages, now accounts for more than half of all email messages sent, according to various industry estimates.

Once regarded as a mere nuisance, a new wave of spam carries viruses and so-called "Trojan" computer programmes capable of hijacking an unsuspected computer user's PC.

Sybari Software, a computer security firm that collaborated on the study, said spam costs companies £199 per employee per year.