Skip to main content

Today's Poll: Does e-mail provider have a right to search your email?

By Howard B. Owens
Bob Harker

Absolutely not, and I have to believe the people who voted yes are just trying to raise eyebrows. As of now, nobody has tried to justify a yes vote.

In this case, if Kibkalo was using a proprietary work related email account Microsoft would have been somewhat justified. Most employers reserve the right to monitor company owned email accounts. If Kibako was using a generic, self generated outlook account then no, they violated his privacy.

They chose however to snoop on the blogger not employed by them. Absolutely not!

I wonder how many users will delete their outlook accounts over this. Glad I don't have one.

Maybe Microsoft is trying to one-up the NSA? Insert sarcasm.

Mar 26, 2014, 5:52pm Permalink
Tim Miller

I cannot answer yes nor no on this one, as it all depends on the terms of service agreed to when signing up for the email service. If the terms of service you agreed to states that your email can be read or scanned, then the email provider can read or scan your email...period. Apparently MS included such a clause for extenuating circumstances, and claimed that this particular situation fit that bill. If a user contends that the circumstances are not extenuating then it guess the courts can get involved.

I use gmail, and Google scans emails for keywords they can use to "offer" directed advertisements. I understand that this is what I agreed to, and accept that it happens. My brother and I even had some fun with it one day, including odd and random phrases in our emails to each other. You can get some interesting ads when you include phrases from sex toy ads.

If you cannot accept the possibility that the provider may legally read your email without a court order, then use one of the paid email services whose terms do not include their right to read your email.

Now, where things get interesting is when I send an email from a service that will not read the email to somebody who uses a service like Hotmail/Outlook/Live. I have not granted MS (for example) the right to read my email, nor has MS ever communicated to me that any email that hits their servers is subject to being read. In that case, MS does NOT have the right to read the email...but if the recipient includes the content of my email in a reply or forwarded email, then my beef is with the recipient, not MS.

Mar 27, 2014, 10:49am Permalink
Jeff Allen

Tim, you bring up an interesting point about 'terms of service agreements'. We usually have to click a button and agree with them to proceed when signing up for most online services. They are generally several pages of legalese and I admit that I don't read them in full before agreeing. We have probably unwittingly given our permission, whether legal or constitutional, to these companies to search, sell, and otherwise exploit our information and habits.

Mar 27, 2014, 11:22am Permalink

Authentically Local