E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication [Paperback]

Nancy Flynn (Author), Randolph Kahn Esq. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2003

E-mail management is a particularly serious business issue in the post-Enron, corporate fraud climate, with many legal and retention concerns related to a company's electronic documents. "E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication" provides readers with a smart, practical, system for handling everything that comes in and leaves their companies' computers from transaction details, to trade secrets, and confidential documents. "E-Mail Rules" also helps business people to maximize the effectiveness of their system by considering e-mail as a critical business tool and provides readers with a practical system for managing and protecting electronic capital. It includes discussion of all the related technologies like instant messaging, Listservs[registered], and online chat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Business Law Today: ""A well-organized guide to implementing e-mail risk management.Rather than a legal treatise, this is a book the lawyer may read to communicate with clients; or the general counsel reads and suggests that the outside lawyer, officers, CTO and head of HR read, so they can all be on the same page. Protection of e-mail records and systems is a complex interdisciplinary efforts, and this book can help get to common ground."""

“The best parts of this book are the real-life examples that provide anecdotal support for the sensible rules put forth.”

— ComputerWorld

“E-Mail Rules provides a business guide to managing policies, security and legal issues for e-mail and digital communications.”

— Wall Street + Technology

“If you worry about liability and compliance with the law, this book provides the ‘rules’ you need to implement in your organization to control e-mail use and abuse.”

— Online magazine

Good advice abounds for executives, managers, and line employees.”

— Library Journal

“Clearly explains how to create email rules and polices…[this] practical, readable guide also provides strategies for dealing with spam, instant messaging, Listserv and chat.”

— Transform magazine

Book Description

"All companies rely on e-mail as a critical business tool, but few have considered the policies and systems necessary to safeguard their interests. Important information including transaction details, trade secrets, and confidential documents contained within messages are business assets with serious legal and financial implications. If an organization is to be safe, it needs a practical system for handling everything that comes into—and leaves—its computers. A toolkit for protecting any company’s electronic capital, E-Mail Rules shows how to:

* Use technology, policy, and employee training to minimize the loss of data

* Create enterprise-wide retention rules for the saving and disposal of messages

* Gain control of transmission and ensure a secure electronic environment

* Develop strategies for related technologies like instant messaging, list serves, and online chat

E-Mail Rules shows readers how to maximize the effectiveness of their organizations’ e-mail systems, and put an end to lost or compromised information."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1 edition (May 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814471889
• ISBN-13: 978-0814471883
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting A Handle on E-Mail Compliance, July 12, 2005

By 

Christopher Byrne "The Business Controls Caddy" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication (Paperback)

In a recent review of "The ePolicy Handbook: Designing and Implementing Effective E-Mail, Internet and Software Policies", I wrote asking questions such as "Does your company or organization have a policy that covers writing style in electronic communications? Does your company or organization have cyberinsurance to cover losses attributed to errors or employee misbehavior using your e-mail systems? Does your company or organization offer netiquette training for employees and managers?"

In her follow-up book, E-Mail Rules - A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication, (254 Pages, The American Management Association, 2003), Nancy Flynn takes a narrower view of the management of E-Mail and Digital Communication in the enterprise.

Much like her first book, Flynn lays out 37 Rules to follow in establishing and managing these policies. She starts out by establishing a framework to build a case for e-mail management. This section covers the need to reduce liability and exposure, real world legal issues, and spelling pout that e-mail belongs to the employer not the employee. From this point, she goes into specific issues surrounding privacy (very important for international communications and differences in laws), content management, Listserv use, and more. The book also has very good concise discussion about retaining e-mail as business records, different methods of storage, and employee education. Flynn then delves into discussions of E-mail Security and managing alternative technologies such as instant messaging and peer-to-peer networking technologies.

Fir this reader, the most important rules are the last two in the book, that deal with employee training as the key to reducing risk, and working to instill a sense of ownership in employees. Without these two items, no policy ever written will work or be effective.

Much like her first book though, the only caution for potential readers is that this book also seems to be a lead-in as a commercial for the services and her colleagues as listed in Appendix C.

The Scorecard: Par on an average Par 4.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Will Pay for Itself a Hundred Times Over, April 30, 2003

By 

Susanna Hutcheson "Copywriting for the Discri... (Midwest U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication (Paperback)

This book covers it all. From email etiquette to how to protect yourself in case of a law suit. Email is a major part of any business --- large and small. And if you're not prepared to handle it; if you don't know how to use it, what to save and what to get rid of, you're going to end out in one big mess.

This book can save you a lot of time and money by telling you how to deal with spam, what sort of policies to implement in your company or business, what email etiquette is all about and many other topics.

This is a book you should have and use no matter how large or small your business is.

Susanna K. Hutcheson
Executive Copy Director and Owner
Powerwriting.com LLC

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book for every company with a PC, April 4, 2009

By 

Nick (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication (Paperback)

This book provides information clearly using questions, providing anecdotes, and offering sample language and examples for composing company email policies. While not substituting for legal counsel this book provides the reader with a working knowledge of laws, how to develop email policies that comply with the law, and the way courts view well fashioned and enforced email usage policies.

My edition of this book was printed in 2003 and some of the technology has advanced considerably, but the basic lessons of this easy to read, well organized book are the same today. It is worth a weekend's worth of reading time to anyone in a business concern tasked with formulating computer use and security policies, or anyone potentially liable for misuse of company email.