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E-mail for fun and profit, and getting fired

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In the spirit of John Mackey at Whole Foods, whose stock-trading postings were themselves posted by the FTC last week, thought we'd pass on a summary of the latest survey by Proofpoint and Forrester about e-mail policies and practices at U.S. companies, organizations and other enterprises. (They surveyed 308 people at companies with 1,000 or more employees.) Note that now around a third of companies have somebody regularly looking over employees' e-mails:
  • Nearly a third of companies surveyed (32.1%) employ staff to read or otherwise analyze outbound e-mail. 38.8% of U.S. companies surveyed with more than 20,000 employees do this.


  • More than 1 in 6 companies surveyed (16.9%) employ staff whose primary or exclusive job function is to read or otherwise monitor outbound e-mail content. Nearly 1 in 5 (19.4%) of companies surveyed with more than 20,000 employees employ such staff.

  • More than 1 in 3 U.S. (37.0%) companies surveyed perform regular audits of outbound email content.

  • U.S. companies surveyed estimate that nearly 1 in 5 outgoing e-mails (18.9%) contains content that poses a legal, financial or regulatory risk. The most common form of non-compliant content is e-mail that contains confidential or proprietary business information.

  • More than 1 in 3 U.S. companies surveyed (33.8%) investigated a suspected e-mail leak of confidential or proprietary information in the past 12 months. Nearly the same number (31.8%) investigated a suspected violation of privacy or data protection regulations in the past 12 months.

  • More than a quarter of U.S. companies surveyed (26.3%) say their business was impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information in the last 12 months. Nearly 1 in 5 (19.2%) said they had been impacted by the improper exposure or theft of intellectual property. 14% said they had been impacted by improper exposure or theft of customer information.

  • More than a quarter of U.S. companies surveyed (27.6%) terminated an employee for violating e-mail policies in the past 12 months.

  • 45.5% of U.S. companies surveyed have disciplined an employee for violating e-mail policies in the past 12 months.

  • More than 1 in 5 U.S. companies surveyed (21.4%) investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via a blog or message board posting. Nearly 1 in 5 (19.2%) U.S. companies surveyed have disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies in the past 12 months. 9.1% reported terminating an employee for such a violation.

  • More than 1 in 8 U.S. companies surveyed (13.0%) investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via video or audio media posted to a media sharing site. More than 1 in 10 U.S. companies surveyed (11.0%) have disciplined an employee for violating media sharing/posting policies in the past 12 months. 6.8% reported terminating an employee for such a violation.

  • More than 1 in 7 companies surveyed (14.0%) have disciplined an employee for violating social networking policies in the past 12 months. 4.9% reported terminating an employee for such a violation.
  • 12.4% of U.S. publicly-traded companies surveyed investigated the exposure of material financial information (such as unannounced quarterly results) via a blog or message board posting in the past 12 months.

  • Nearly a third (29.1%) of companies surveyed with 20,000 employees reported that employee e-mail was subpoenaed in the last 12 months. Overall, more than 1 in 5 (20.1%) of companies surveyed were ordered by a court or regulatory body to produce employee email in the past 12 months.

  • In addition to concerns about the corporate mail system, nearly half of U.S. companies surveyed (48.7%) are “very concerned” or “concerned” about web-based e-mail as a conduit for exposure of confidential or proprietary information.

  • More than half of U.S. companies surveyed (56.2%) say that it is “important” or “very important” to reduce the legal and financial risks associated with outbound e-mail in the next 12 months.

  • More than half of U.S. companies surveyed (53.6%) say that it is “important” or “very important” to reduce the legal and financial risks associated with outbound HTTP traffic (such as webmail and blog postings) in the next 12 months.

    • Posted by phillyinc on July 23, 2007 12:48 AM |

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