No More Secrets
As reported in the Washington Post, some Internet service providers are monitoring “every click you make” on your computer. Advertisers pay them to do this for obvious reasons. This means that there is a record of every site you visit. Visited any secret sites lately? You may think you have, but if you’re being monitored, there are no more secret sites.
Employers have been monitoring employees’ computer use for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have a written policy advising your employees that you’re doing that.
But how far do we really want this to go? I’m not sure it matters. As the Post article notes, technology moves so fast it’s hard to keep up with. It’s particularly hard for the law to keep up with it, because the law moves pretty slow.
I guess this is a reminder that before we click, we should think.
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About Chris Parker
Chris Parker's practice focuses on the representation and counseling of companies in matters pertaining to the workplace and the protection of their intellectual property and trade secrets. In addition to serving as an advocate for clients, Mr. Parker is also trained as a mediator and frequently serves as a third-party neutral.
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About Jimmy Daniel
Jimmy Daniel provides counseling to businesses of all sizes related to the employment relationship. He assists in the drafting of employment agreements, policies, and handbooks, as well as provides guidance related to compliance with federal, state, and local legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
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About Larry Bridgesmith
While serving in an Of Counsel relationship with the firm, Mr. Bridgesmith also serves as the Executive Director at the Institute for Conflict Resolution at Lipscomb University and as an officer and principal in Strategic Resolutions Group, LLC. In these roles, Mr. Bridgesmith brings over 30 years of legal experience in dispute resolution and innovative workplace strategies to clients, students and business entities alike.
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Not only is the incredibly intrusive but is extremely dangerous. The reason this is dangerous is that it is very difficult to filter what is stored and what is not. Usually people get lazy and end up storing more information than they should. Once things are stored, they get into the wrong hands and fraud happens on a grand scale.
The two things that should be done to prevent this are
1. Make penalties for leakage of information that is stored without explicit consent by the users punitive. This will increase the cost of such monitoring significantly.
2. For providers of websites to switch more and more to using https (encrypted http). This will make the traffic immune to man in the middle monitoring. I think the pipes, clients and servers have become powerful enough for this to be the default.
Thanks for weighing in and providing your advice. I’m inclined to believe that, despite our best efforts (but as you say, maybe our best efforts aren’t so good), it’s going to become more intrusive and dangerous.