Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
April 5, 1999, Monday ,City Edition
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1475 words
HEADLINE:
Raytheon suit spurs call for on-line privacy rules
BYLINE: By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff
BODY:
Internet service providers
such as America Online and Microsoft Corp. offer strict assurances they will
protect the privacy of your personal
information.
Unless somebody asks to see it. Then things might
change.
That seems to be the lesson emerging from a lawsuit filed by
Raytheon Co. against 21 people the Lexington defense contractor claims posted
private company information on a message board run by Yahoo Inc. on the World
Wide Web.
Raytheon didn't know any more than the screen-names of the
message posters when it filed the suit in February in Middlesex Superior Court,
seeking damages of more than $25,000 from a group of defendants
it calls "John Does." But Yahoo provided at least some basic information,
allowing the Lexington-based defense contractor to gain motions demanding
further discovery from AOL, Microsoft, and others as it tries to identify the
chat-board users. Since then at least two Raytheon employees have left the
company, apparently as a result of the investigation.
Among other
things, Raytheon says the postings caused "harm to its business reputation,"
citing messages in which employees griped about the company's new chief
executive, Daniel Burnham, its earnings outlook, and controls at a plant in
Andover.
Several of those targeted by Raytheon deny the charges. Also,
they say, they are upset at Yahoo, the California-based Internet portal. Yahoo
says it was following its guidelines, but a few users say they expected a
heads-up when Raytheon came knocking.
"I don't believe I'm guilty" of
disclosing trade secrets, said one former Raytheon employee being sued. "But I
have that feeling that somebody's after me for something I didn't do."
Raytheon's demands are among the most extensive to date as companies try
to clamp down on chat about them on-line. These cases - and Raytheon's in
particular - also point up the differences in the protections that the nation's
largest Internet providers afford their users.
That's a sore subject
among privacy advocates, who want stricter federal rules to clarify what they
call a hodgepodge of practices.
"Too many of these companies have very
easy procedures for lifting the anonymity of their users," said David Sobel,
general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington,
D.C., advocacy group. "It really creates a chilling effect on people who want to
use the Internet in the way they've become used to using it," he said.
Most of the recent demands for personal data stem from the growth of
forums on the World Wide Web devoted to company news. In an ongoing suit, for
example, Oregon-based Itex Corp. last year obtained from Yahoo the identities of
several users the company claims made defamatory statements about it.
But complaints about their disclosures put service providers in a bind,
says Jonathan Osder, an attorney at Donahue Gallagher Woods & Wood in
Oakland., Calif., whose firm represents several Internet service providers, or
ISPs. "The ISPs are trying on the one hand to make people be at ease," he said.
"But on the other hand, they're saying that if you hit us with a
subpoena, we won't want to be a part of this," Osder said. Fighting disclosures
costs money, he noted.
America Online, for example, promises its members
in an on-line policy statement that "We do not give out your telephone number,
credit card information, or screen names unless you authorize us to do so."
Click through to the fine print, however, and AOL adds that it might do
so in some cases "to comply with valid legal process." Usually that means giving
customers 14 days to file a challenge to a demand for information, a spokesman
said.
Microsoft Corp., whose MSN unit also provides access to the
Internet, says the company also usually notifies customers before surrendering
data to outsiders in civil cases. But the software giant says nothing in
writing. "We deal with these things on an individual basis," said the spokesman,
Tom Pilla.
Last month Raytheon won two motions to seek discovery against
Microsoft and one of its units, Hotmail. Pilla said neither has received any
demands from Raytheon yet.
On its own Website, Yahoo states that: "Yahoo
is committed to safeguarding your privacy on line." But the policy also says:
"As a general rule, Yahoo will not disclose any of your personally identifiable
information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances,
such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it . . ."
To
several of the people being sued by Raytheon, that language implied Yahoo could
have alerted them.
"Reading their disclosure, it said they would keep
this information confidential," said the former Raytheon employee.
"I
see no problem with them [ Yahoo] releasing it, if I'm told beforehand," the
former employee said.
Neither Yahoo nor Raytheon executives have
contacted him regarding his postings, this person said, adding he learned of the
lawsuit from chat about it on the Internet.
Another person being sued by
Raytheon, who uses the screen name of "Winstoncar," also wanted Yahoo to protect
the information.
"I don't like their policy of turning over our names,"
Winstoncar wrote on the chat board on Saturday. "The message board states that
Raytheon is not connected with it, and we may share information with others.
That's what I did. Bad choice!"
Yahoo spokeswoman Diane Hunt said the
John Does should have read the company's policies more carefully. Under those
terms, she said, "We believe that we were already notifying them in advance"
that the company would answer demands like Raytheon's.
Hunt declined to
discuss what information, if any, the company has passed along. But other people
familiar with the matter say Yahoo turned over much of what it knew about the
users. In some cases that included only e-mail addresses linked to other
accounts on AOL, Microsoft, and others. Now Raytheon is using that data to
demand more specifics from the ISPs.
"You can think of it as, just how
many doors are you going to step through?" said one person close to the case.
So far just one of the John Does has publicly identified himself: Steve
MacKenzie, an engineer at Raytheon's Andover facility who goes by the Yahoo
screen name of "RaytheonVeteran." He said he learned of the suit from newspaper
accounts.
MacKenzie remains at his job in Andover. He declined to say
whether the company has taken any actions against him. Raytheon says the suit
against "RaytheonVeteran" remains in effect.
In the suit, Raytheon
alleged a message he posted on June 30 constituted "disclosure of inside
financial issues" because it described certain changes to the company's
profit-sharing plans. MacKenzie now says that he was only reporting information
that was about to be printed in a company newsletter.
In a message on
the Yahoo chat board on March 5, MacKenzie wrote: "My only regret is that
Raytheon never made any attempt to locate us using conventional means. Bulk
e-mail for instance or perhaps a short blurb in the company newsletter."
Raytheon spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said that MacKenzie and other
posters should have known better already, under existing nondisclosure
agreements.
But after newspaper reports of the suit appeared in early
March, Raytheon sent around a general memo that was more specific about employee
use of the Internet.
According to the memo, "It's always OK for
employees to discuss the company and its actions, and otherwise to air their
thoughts through the Internet. In these cases, the Internet is just an
electronic extension of the old-fashioned conversation at the water cooler.
However . . . please take extra care not to discuss company proprietary
information. That is never OK."
Raytheon declined to discuss its ongoing
probe or whether it has extended its search for other employees besides the 21
it has already sued. Citing employee privacy, the company also declined to
comment on whether it has disciplined any. One of the Yahoo users cited by the
company, the one known as Winstoncar, reported on the message board last week
that "as of today I no longer work for the company."
Some Raytheon
employees say this person and others deserved to be punished for giving
outsiders a look at internal matters. "To place the blame on Yahoo demonstrates
an inability to accept personal responsibility for your actions," wrote one
poster who uses the moniker "Gearjammer47."
Others say Yahoo's actions
have left the chat-room users isolated - the opposite of what they expected when
they chose to express their opinions anonymously. "The irony is profound," said
one Raytheon employee, who often posts chat on the Yahoo message board but isn't
involved in the suit.
"Raytheon knows who these people are, and their
putative friends don't," he said.
LOAD-DATE: April 05,
1999 
