In the context of e-mail, the range of important business reasons justifying routine monitoring seems broad indeed preventing online sex harassment, loss of trade secrets, copyright infringement, excessive use of company property for personal reasons and the balancing test between employee and employer has weighed in favor of the employer far more often than not. Courts have historically held that business interests can justify even extremely invasive conduct. Where the employer s interest is sufficiently strong or the invasive action is a customary business practice, privacy interests may be overridden. Subsequently, May was demoted from manager to an entry-level position because of her lack of support for the company s cultural diversity program. It is notable that no privacy violations were claimed by May with regard to the e-mail, and the court did not raise the issue on its own.
Federal law claims.
The court held that the officers had no reasonable expectation of privacy when the police department warned pager users that their messages would be logged on the network, and when the messages were available to anyone with access to the department s computer system. Backup copies may exist on the sender s or recipient s personal computers or on the company s network. If the e-mail was sent through a commercial service or the Internet, it may have passed through several computers. Each computer between the sender and the recipient may have retained a copy. As a result, it is now commonplace for litigants to ask for the production of e-mail messages in discovery, although they may ultimately be deemed inadmissible.