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www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/trends/article.php/497591
By Alexis Gutzman October 27, 2000 What would happen if your company was subpoenaed to surrender all of its e-mail backup tapes for the last five years, as the result of a lawsuit by a disgruntled former employee? How many tapes would there be? What if you were subpoenaed to turn over only particular email messages from those tapes? How much would it cost your company in terms of time, money, and not to mention negative publicity? Maybe you don''t have any disgruntled employees. However, what if your currently loyal employees are installing pirated copies of software on company computers for which you don''t have adequate licenses? This is a common occurrence, and one that can cost you dearly. Remember the fine that MP3.com is appealing -- $2,500 per copy of pirated music? For infringed software, the ceiling is $100,000 per copy, and the penalty would also include having to pay for the legal copies, and possible jail time. While there''s nothing you can do to guarantee you''ll never be in either of those situations, there are things you can do to protect your company from much of the expenses that can be incurred in either scenario. I came across The E-Policy Handbook: Designing and Implementing Effective E-Mail, Internet, and Software Policies, by Nancy L. Flynn, (AMACOM, 2001) when I was visiting my publisher the other day. It looked like something useful, but boring. With my readers in mind, I asked for a copy, thinking that I could wade through it. I''m a disciplined reader, which means I will read really boring things if I think I''m going to learn something. I sat down to read it and the next thing I knew, I''d finished 25 pages. In addition to being a valuable resource, this book is a fast read. The book begins with stories that will keep you up at night until you have your own e-mail retention policies, Internet usage policies, and software distribution policies in place. Next it outlines who should be on your E-Policy Committee, and what role each person will serve. It explains how and why to do an audit of your organization, so you can see what abuses are already taking place. It also explains what kind of insurance you need for each of the risks you face related to cyber activities. There''s a short course in the middle on security, which includes such seemingly obvious but often forgotten tactics as locking the server room door. The nice part is that this is all written very clearly, so all of the E-Policy Committee members will be able to read, understand, and discuss it later. One point it makes repeatedly is that no company is too small to have a policy. All it takes to have the software police (the Software Information & Industry Association''s Anti-piracy Division) show up at your door is a report from a former employee or from a consultant whose bill you''re contesting. The book ends with guidelines for writing and implementing the policies, including suggestions for getting employees to feel a sense of ownership about them. Each chapter even has its own Cliff Notes-like summary at the end, called a Chapter Recap and E-Action Plan. This book is designed for use for even the non-technical audience. The topic may be dry, but when you''re done with the book, you''ll feel like you''ve had a conversation with a well-informed friend. It''s refreshing to see a book on so clinical a topic with such a friendly (but not cloyingly so), conversational tone. Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. Her newest book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena will be out in December. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com |
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