Some email fun facts
In the last year alone, according to the International Computer Security Association (ICSA), employee security breaches increased by 35% and the leak of proprietary information increased by 58%.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that discrimination claims have escalated by 50% -- from 10,532 in 1992 to 15,889 in 1998.

According to an online survey by World Research, 40% of respondents receive "heavy to very heavy" amounts of junk email everyday. In fact, according to recent Senate testimony from the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), a few days of junk email for an ISP the size of AOL would fill the disk storage space of every office computer on Capitol Hill.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 22% of its members responding to a random survey have received employee complaints about inappropriate or offensive email.

Also, according to the SHRM, slightly more than half of their members (52%), had written email policies, and of these, only a quarter are actually enforcing them -- which can be as expensive as not having a policy at all.

According to Earl Crum of the ISCA (International Computer Security Association), "Internet misuse is becoming a huge drain on corporate productivity. Corporations are losing tens of thousands of dollars in wasted time, as well as the hard costs for providing access to the Internet for so many computers."

The message is clear
The odds are stacked against companies when it comes to corporate email use. Email continues to be one of the most widely deployed desktop applications. People say things in email they would never memorialize on company letterhead. Judges' rulings have put the burden of proof on companies -- not employees. Finally, the costs and negative publicity of an email-based lawsuit can be astronomical.

So why haven't more organizations employed content security? Because we'd all like to think that this isn't the kind of neighborhood where you have to lock the doors. Unfortunately, as Microsoft has shown us, the neighborhood has gone downhill. And all it takes is one lawsuit --yours -- to bring this fact home.

Victor Woodward is vice-president of Content Technologies, Inc., a content security company in Kirkland, WA. His web address is http://www.mimesweeper.com, and you can reach him by email at victor@us.mimesweeper.com.