INFOWORLD GRIPE LINE BY ED FOSTER Bookmark this page

  
Display: Sort:
Permission to Spy | 66 comments (66 topical) | Post A Comment
Corporate Consent[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by tscoff on Sat Jun 12, 2004 at 08:16:01 PM PDT

Going with your question about how your minor children give legally binding permission to install any form of monitoring software, I'm an employer and a small business owner.  My employees are not authorized to give legally binding permissiion to anyone to install any form of monitoring software on my computers.  If any spyware is installed on my computers it is not authorized by me.  What will happen if some spyware gets installed, I take the spyware company to court, and their defense is that my employee consented to installing their monitoring software?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Re: Corporate Consent[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by Ed Foster on Sun Jun 13, 2004 at 11:22:11 PM PDT

There are precedents that say if one of your employees clicks OK, however unknowingly, than he or she has committed your business to the "contract." That is certainly the UCITA way of thinking, and it has been upheld in some court cases, even when it was an outside consultant doing the clicking. The bottom line is that, as long as companies like WhenU and Gator have any hope of legal sanction for their sneakwrap licenses, we're going to have a huge spyware problem.

Ed Foster



[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Re: Corporate Consent[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#12)
by tscoff on Mon Jun 14, 2004 at 09:02:01 AM PDT

Ed,

Does this mean that if an employee of mine clicks Yes or Ok on the sneak-wrap agreement and I discipline or fire them for clicking on that I as an employer am still held to the terms of that agreement?

And does this mean that if I have an employee of mine sign an employment contract that states that they are not authorized to enter into any contractual agreements on behalf of my company and I post a policy on my company's web site to the effect that no employees of the company are authorized to enter into any contractual agreements on behalf of the company and an employee clicks on that button agreeing to install the spyware on my computer I'm still going to be held to the sneak-wrap agreement that the employee "agreed" to?

That's ridiculous!  No employee of mine is authorized to enter into any contractual agreements that hold me accountable for anything.  I'm a very small shop and I'm the only one authorized to enter into contractual agreements for my company.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]



Permission to Spy | 66 comments (66 topical) | Post A Comment
Display: Sort:

Menu
· create account
· faq
· search

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:

 HOME  NEWS  COLUMNS  BLOGS  PODCASTS  TECHNOLOGIES  TEST CENTER  EVENTS  CAREERS  IT EXEC-CONNECT   About Awards Contact Us 

Copyright © 2006, Reprints, Permissions, Licensing, IDG Network, Privacy Policy.
All Rights reserved. InfoWorld is a leading publisher of technology information and product reviews on topics including viruses,
phishing, worms, firewalls, security, servers, storage, networking, wireless, databases, and web services.

 ComputerWorld :: LinuxWorld :: Network World :: CIO :: PC World :: Darwin :: CMO :: CSO
IT Careers :: JavaWorld :: Macworld :: Mac Central :: Playlist :: GamePro :: GameStar :: Gamerhelp
ITWorld Canada :: Computerwoche :: Techworld UK :: tecChannel :: IDG.se :: IDG.no :: IDG.pl

create account | faq | search