Outbound E-mail = Inbound Issues

A story on Law.com entitled "Outbound E-Mails Spell Inbound Legal Trouble for Corporations" points to a recent study from Proofpoint.com on how corporations are concerned about the content of their outbound e-mail.

The study received responses from a total of 424 "IT decision makers" including CIOs and IT directors from the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia.

"In non-compliant e-mail messages leaving your organization, what is the most common form of inappropriate content?"

• 30% - Adult, obscene or potentially offensive content
• 26% - Confidential or proprietary business information about your organization
• 17% - Personal healthcare, financial or identity data which may violate privacy and data protection regulations
• 13% - Valuable intellectual property or trade secrets which should not leave the organization

"Using your best estimate, what percent of your organization's outbound e-mail contains content that poses a legal, financial, or regulatory risk to your organization?" Answer - 12%.

I've posted more highlights from the survey on my www.ediscoveryinfo.com blog. Rob Robinson has posted the survey here on his Complex Discovery blog.