Your boss shouldn't read your text or e-mail messages without an OK, court says

A federal appeals court Wednesday sharply limited the ability of employers to obtain e-mails and text messages sent by employees on company-financed accounts. The text message portion of the ruling, issued by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will affect all employers who contract with an outside provider for messaging, as most do. Access to e-mail would be barred if the employer contracts out its e-mail service rather than maintaining an internal server to handle it. A majority of companies keep employee e-mail on their servers, analysts said. Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook program, which has a 65% share of the corporate e-mail market, can be used either on a company's internal systems or on systems managed by vendors. Currently, about 28% of Outlook users have their e-mail handled by an outside vendor, according to research firm Radicati Group. The ruling also gives all government workers 4th Amendment protection against searches of text and e-mail communications by their bosses, lawyers said.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-me-text19-2008jun19,0,18...
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