Email Policy
Posted by PRO Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:56:00 GMT
THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED BY THE PINELLAS REALTOR ORGANIZATION® AS A SAMPLE TOOL FOR ITS MEMBER BROKERAGES AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE, OR A SUBSTITUTE FOR SPECIFIC LEGAL ADVICE OR OPINIONS. THE USER OF THIS SAMPLE DOCUMENT SHOULD NOT ACT OR REFRAIN FROM ACTING, OR USE THIS DOCUMENT WITHOUT CONSULTING LEGAL COUNSEL. THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT SHOULD BE MODIFIED TO ADDRESS THE SPECIFIC LEGAL NEEDS OF THE USER.
Email Policy
1.0 Purpose
To prevent tarnishing the public image of ABC REALTY and to prevent email use from causing a security breach.
2.0 Scope
This policy covers appropriate use of any email sent from an ABC REALTY email address and applies to all employees, vendors, and agents operating on behalf of ABC REALTY.
3.0 Policy
3.1 Prohibited Use. The ABC REALTY email system shall not to be used for the creation or distribution of any disruptive or offensive messages, including offensive comments about race, gender, hair color, disabilities, age, sexual orientation, pornography, religious beliefs and practice, political beliefs, or national origin. Employees who receive any emails with this content from any ABC REALTY employee should report the matter to their supervisor immediately.
The following is also prohibited:
- Sending unsolicited email messages, including the sending of "junk mail" or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material (email spam).
- Creating or forwarding "chain letters", "Ponzi" or other "pyramid" schemes of any type.
- Unauthorized use, or forging, of email header information.
- Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).
- Including passwords or other sensitive information into email messages.
- Providing your email password to anyone, or allowing another person to use your email account.
EVER open any files or macros attached to an email from an unknown, suspicious or untrustworthy source. Delete these attachments immediately, then "double delete" them by emptying your Trash. If you receive, but are not expecting, an attachment from a known source you should verify that the attachment was sent from that source via email or telephone before opening the attachment. Delete spam, chain, and other junk email without forwarding.
ABC REALTY employees and contractors with remote access privileges to ABC REALTY’s corporate network must not use non-ABC REALTY email accounts (i.e., Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL), or other external resources to conduct ABC REALTY business, thereby ensuring that official business is never confused with personal business.
Employees should not post to newsgroups using an ABC REALTY email address or including information that identifies the company – unless that activity is required for job activities and has been approved by a manager. Postings by employees from a ABC REALTY email address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of ABC REALTY, unless posting is in the course of business duties.
If sensitive information must be sent using email, such information should always be sent using organizationally approved encryption tools. The decryption key must never be sent via email.
3.2 Personal Use.
Using a reasonable amount of ABC REALTY resources for personal emails is acceptable, but non-work related email shall be saved in a separate folder from work related email. Sending chain letters or joke emails from an ABC REALTY email account is prohibited. Virus or other malware warnings and mass mailings from ABC REALTY shall be approved by ABC REALTY management before sending. These restrictions also apply to the forwarding of mail received by an ABC REALTY employee.
3.3 Monitoring
ABC REALTY employees shall have no expectation of privacy in anything they store, send or receive on the company’s email system. ABC REALTY may monitor messages without prior notice. ABC REALTY is not obliged to monitor email messages.
4.0 Enforcement
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
5.0 Definitions
| Term | Definition |
| The electronic transmission of information through a mail protocol such as SMTP or IMAP. Typical email clients include Eudora and Microsoft Outlook. | |
| Forwarded email | Email resent from an internal network to an outside point. |
| Chain email or letter | Email sent to successive people. Typically the body of the note has direction to send out multiple copies of the note and promises good luck or money if the direction is followed. |
| Sensitive information | Information is considered sensitive if it can be damaging to ABC REALTY or its customers’ reputation or market standing. |
| Virus warning | Email containing warnings about virus or malware. The overwhelming majority of these emails turn out to be a hoax and contain bogus information usually intent only on frightening or misleading users. |
| Unauthorized Disclosure | The intentional or unintentional revealing of restricted information to people, both inside and outside ABC REALTY, who do not have a need to know that information. |
6.0 Revision History
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