Say Anything Blog

Employers in Europe are going to have to find some heavy-duty spam-filtering software if they hope to avoid lawsuits under a new European law:

From Reuters:

E-mail porn spam in the workplace could land European employers in court for fostering a hostile work environment, a Dutch researcher says.

The broad wording of new European anti-spam legislation opens up a new breed of legal snares for Europe's corporate sector, according to 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 e-mail."

He advises companies that operate an e-mail 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.

Is there any email address that isn't susceptible to spam, especially porno spam, after being activated for a certain amount of time? I once started an email address for my daughter and within a week it was already being hit with Viagra ads. But whose fault is this? Should businesses really be held responsible for content being sent to its employees from outside sources?

I don't think so. As long as a business isn't encouraging such spamming and is doing what it can to filter out unwanted email messages it shouldn't be susceptible to a lawsuit.

I wonder what effect this law will have on Europe's economy? I could see a lot of businesses moving away from email as a business tool in order to avoid lawsuits.