[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date /
thread ]
[ Next by date /
thread => ]
Adrian Midgley wrote:
It was also part of the fuss revolving around the dispute over the fsa.co.uk domain, which has been resolved with the MTA settings being changed so as to bounce mails addressed to unconfigured users rather than pass them to the postmaster for sorting out.
<doh> Hadn't heard that one - presumably if postmaster is wanting to read or scan e-mail he isn't going to rely on the ones that bounce. If postmaster does anything more than stare vaguely at bounced mail headers to see if he has made a mistake he probably has too much time on his hands, or is paid by the hour and not salaried. The Postmaster I knew at a Fortune 500 company would look at the dross folder once a day, and if there weren't significantly more than about 100 he just deleted the whole lot ;). This was in the days before the Internet became popular!
"As to the law, the convenient starting point is the judgment of Megarry J in Coco v. A.N. Clark (Engineers) Ltd. [1969] RPC 41, where, at p.47, he stated the three elements normally required, apart from contract, for an action for breach of confidence to succeed: first, the information must have the necessary quality of confidence about it; second, the information must have been imparted in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence; third, there must be an unauthorised use of that information to the detriment of the party communicating it."
Interesting - not clear how much applies to "misaddressed" e-mail. Seems 'breech of confidence' may be wider still - a case involving Elton John and a website. I suspect the websites owners main mistake was not having deep enough pockets, as having the information posted to a website doesn't seem to me to be "importing an obligation of confidence". -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.