E-mail law

The distinction is made between regulation of the Internet in general and of e‐mail. Five topics are presented: identity and trust, employment, contents administration, records management and security issues. In all of them the important step is to define the issues, and the actual regulation then develops from that of non‐digital equivalents. The key finding is the need for education for all levels of user to clarify the issues. Simply not taking enough care seems to be at the root of many actionable issues. The characteristics of the medium are not being allowed for. The paper concludes with what we can put into a course right now and what relevant research questions could be asked.