[Coco] Quoting private email

[Christopher Smith]

Sure, of course the original sender of the mail should have made it clear what parts were confidential.  Given that the mail was business-related, one could easily (and I probably would) assume that confidence is only required for obvious things.  That said, perhaps the original recipient misread or missed that part, or perhaps the original sender didn't include a request for confidence when they should have, fine.  These things happen, and while they make one look a bit daft, at least we all have a bit of that in our past somewhere.  What should not happen is that when the forwarded mail is quoted later by another person (who would reasonably assume the mail is public knowledge), you threaten them with attack lawyers.  If I had the experience Steven recounts below, it would be enough to sour me on this company's products for eternity.  Since I don't personally know Steven, I withhold judgment for now.  If there are many more reports of this kind of behavior from them, that will also be sufficient.  It's very easy to damage the reputation of your business by mistreating potential customers.

Chris

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tormod Volden" <lists.tormod at gmail.com>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 2:50:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Quoting private email
> 
> What a lynch mob! I don't see any evidence of the person mentioned in
> the original post being the same guy who "threatened" Steve. All I
> can
> see from Dennis' post is that he /asked/ for the message to be
> removed. So from there to call him "condescending pr!ck" for his
> "manifesting such behavior" is bad will in my opinion. Granted, I
> would also guess it is the same person, but it would be a guess, very
> much like Dennis's guess about him self-googling - which was also
> used
> against the person further down in the thread.
> 
> Well, I also wanted to comment on the topic. Copyright and law aside,
> it is impolite to quote a private e-mail in public. This includes
> posting it to lists, or forwarding to others without the sender's
> consent (unless you know the person and the circumstances so well
> that
> you can be sure he's OK with it). In my opinion that would also cover
> private e-mails from a business as long it is clear one-to-one
> message
> exchange and not some boiler-plate newsletter. If we don't protect
> privacy in such situations, it will eventually be difficult to get
> any
> honest information from any business representative when you need it.
> 
> If something slips out, I find it legimitate, although rather futile,
> to ask about having it removed. That is, ask as in asking, not
> threatening. From what I know the person in question here might even
> be willing to pay for the expenses incurred. I guess he won't but
> that
> doesn't entitle me to call him names.
> 
> Tormod
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Christopher Smith
> <csmith at wolfram.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Steven Hirsch" <snhirsch at gmail.com>
> >> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts"
> >> <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> >> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 7:05:07 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [Coco] Quoting private email
> >
> >
> >> This guy certainly fits that bill and I doubt he needs any
> >> provoking
> >> to
> >> manifest such behavior.  He sent personal e-mail threatening me
> >> with
> >> legal
> >> action for disclosing the contents of a prior transmission that I
> >> was
> >> NOT
> >> THE RECIPIENT OF!  I did not appreciate it and told him so in
> >> rather
> >> explicit terms before adding his address to my killfile.
> >
> > Can't say my response would have been much different in that
> > situation.  This will be a bit of a public-relations nightmare for
> > them at this point, I suppose.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > --
> > Christopher Smith
> > Systems Engineer, Wolfram Research
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> 
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> 

-- 
Christopher Smith
Systems Engineer, Wolfram Research