Our Email Should Not Be Treated Like an Open Book

The New York Times offers a potent editorial today that I wish more people in charge would take to heart:

When you click on "send" to deliver that e-mail note to your lover, mother or boss, you realize that you are not communicating directly with that person. As you well know, you have stored the e-mail on the computer of your Internet service provider, which, as you also know, may read, copy and use the note for its own purposes before sending it on.

What, you didn't know all this? Sounds ludicrous? We would have thought so, too, but a federal appeals court recently ruled that companies providing e-mail services could read clients' e-mail notes and use them as they wish. Part of its rationale was that none of this would shock you because you have never expected much online privacy.

Count us among the shocked. The decision, on a 2-to-1 vote by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Massachusetts, sets up a frightening precedent, one that must be reversed by the courts, if not the Congress. It's true that people are aware of some limits on online privacy, particularly in the workplace. But the notion that a company like America Online, essentially a common carrier, has the right to read private e-mail is ludicrous.