Re: Gmail for students and IMAP

[Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks () VT EDU>]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:36:41 EDT, "McClenon, Braden" said:
> "should be kept as private as possible" and "will not read email unless
> necessary in the course of their duties" don't give me much reassurance
> of privacy.  Seems like that wording gives a lot of latitude...

To: All-user
Subject: Repeated email crashes

I'm sorry, we have a user's piece of mail that keeps crashing our mail server,
but we can't do anything about it because we promised we'd never read your
mail, no matter what. So we'll have to deal with repeated crashes till that
user does something about that e-mail, since we can't identify it for certain
without reading it.
                The Mail Sysadmin

You *don't* want to policy yourself into a situation like that - which is
why even the federal wiretap and ECPA statutes specifically say that service
providers are allowed to look if needed:

18 USC 2511 (2)(a)(i):
(i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a
switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of a provider of wire or
electronic communication service, whose facilities are used in the transmission
of a wire or electronic communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that
communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any
activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to
the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service,
except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not
utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service
quality control checks.

You *really* want to make sure you retain the right to deal with e-mails
that hose up your server. Trust me on this one. ;)

Our local stance: we don't guarantee privacy, but we *do* guarantee
confidentiality (unless legal considerations force us to do otherwise).

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