Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Re: Privacy Rights in Workplace

Th short answer to this is "probably." Courts have found that information transferred via company computers is generally not "Private" and the employer has an interest in making sure their equipment is used for lawful and productive purposes. However, a recent case did recognize the existence of "attorney-client" privilege arising from information and employee wrote on his company issued laptop for the benefit of his attorney. There, the court held that the employee's interest in confidentiality outweighed the employers interest in how it's equipment was used. This is a very limited and narrow ruling based on the facts present in that case, and it should not be relied upon by employees as a court acknowledgment extending privacy interests to instant messaging, or e-mail for that matter.

Re: Privacy Rights in Workplace

There are very few protections for work place privacy. I found a great resource at the following link: http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs7-work.htm

I don't know about MSN, but Yahoo instant message archives are stored locally on the ocmputer where the user is chatting. If you are not on company time and using a personal computer, you should be ok. If you are at the office and on the clock, chances are they have the right to review your archives. Of course, you can always turn on the archiving of the messages to remove some of the "paper trail" of yoru conversations, assuming that this wouldn't be a violation of your company's policy.