Legal Research

"Free E-Mail Services: Safe or Not?"

Posted by Carolyn Elefant: "Last week, I asked whether lawyers make a poor impression on clients when using free e-mail addresses like Gmail or Yahoo. This week, there's a more serious debate brewing in the blogosphere over e-mail, specifically, whether free e-mail services are unsafe at any speed. In other words, are the confidentiality and privacy features of these systems so grossly inadequate that no level of caution can make them suitable for communication with clients?

Toby Brown at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog cautions against reliance on these services. Re-reading the terms of service agreements from Gmail and Yahoo, Brown discovered that they both reserve the rights to pre-screen e-mail and target ads to content. Because these free e-mail services expose confidential communications to third parties, Brown believes that lawyers who use these services may be waiving confidentiality and could put themselves at risk of disciplinary action....

Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Blog Watch, 19 August 2009

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).