The survey, entitled “Email: Coming out of the Amateur’s Closet!,” was carried out by market research firm Vanson Bourne on behalf of Interliant, an ASP.
Other findings show that 28% of e-mail users do not pay the same level of attention to e-mails as they do to letters, although the study does not distinguish between internal, personal and customer/client correspondence in this statistic.
The survey also said that 24% of respondents “have received an e-mail with an error that substantially changed the meaning.” More than half of e-mails sent by 88% of respondents were business-related, not personal. The most common number of e-mails sent and received each day was between 30 and 50.
Of those firms using confidentiality notices and disclaimers as automatic headers or footers in their e-mails, 34% of respondents thought they would be legally effective. OUT-LAW.COM’s John Salmon said:
“In most cases, disclaimers that in effect tell a recipient not to rely on the content of the e-mail will be ineffective. It is worth using confidentiality notices to cover the situation where the e-mail is sent to the wrong person.”
Only 26% of respondents were aware of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which came into force in October 2000 and creates an offence of intercepting e-mails except in certain circumstances. In the case of employers, the rules for an employer to follow if wanting to monitor staff e-mail are set out in Regulations made under the Act, the Human Rights Act and a draft Code issued by the Information Commissioner (formerly the Data Protection Commissioner).
Salmon added:
“Although this report only surveyed a fairly small number of individuals, it’s clear that there is still confusion about what businesses can and cannot do with regard to monitoring e-mail. Basically, any business giving staff e-mail access should have an e-mail policy in place. For it to be effective, the staff must know about it and it must be enforced. An employer must not turn a blind eye to abuse of the policy and then suddenly punish one employee for abusing it.
“E-mail policies need not just cover monitoring; they should set out the steps for employees to follow when, for example, e-mailing customers, to ensure the company’s quality standards and procedures are not compromised.”
For a guidance on these rules and to request a free policy from OUT-LAW.COM, see our article, Monitoring employee e-mail and internet access in the UK.
One third of respondents said they conduct legally binding transactions by e-mail – yet more than half of all respondents incorrectly thought that contracts entered into by e-mail carried less “legal weight” than contracts expressed in letter on headed stationery.