The widespread use of e-mail and the Internet, its ease of use, its instant distribution, the massive amounts of data which may be transmitted or published, the apparent anonymity of users, have given rise to new issues to be addressed. Both employers and employees have an interest in balancing the concerns of the business with the privacy of the employee. Among the concerns of any business are the maintenance of its trade secrets, providing a non-hostile and professional environment free from sexual harassment and racial discrimination, protection of business assets from disgruntled employees, and limiting the waste of employee's time by unnecessary personal use of business assets. E-mail and the Internet offers employees an easy way to transmit, with a click of a mouse, the trade secrets of the business to competitors or to outside storage for future use in competitive enterprises. The abuse of a company's system is easily used for sexual harassment of employees by the transmission of off-color jokes and suggestive messages.
Disgruntled employees can access sensitive company data and transmit it to others or destroy it.
In addition to personal use of the electronic system of an employer, employees have been known to set up football pools, gambling systems, and other non-productive uses, generally leading to a waste of the employee's time and the employer's resources. Many are under the misimpression that deleted messages are obliterated and cannot be retrieved. Many businesses have found opposing counsel poring through deleted e-mail messages and attachments looking for evidence in cases brought by employees against employers as well as by competitors in civil matters. Courts routinely admit such computer based records as evidence. Among employees concerns are the employee's right to privacy, the employee's right to freedom of speech, as well as union activity on the employer's premises.