Sue Spammers For Sexual Harassment?
Q: Here's a question that I hope some attorneys will try to answer. This kind of lawsuit may be far more
viable than, for example, suing McDonald's for selling fatty foods or
suing gun manufacturers when criminals misuse their products to hurt
other people.
If, for example, a vendor's employee shows sexually explicit material to a
female employee, the vendor can be sued for sexual harassment.
If we take this to the next step, a pornographic spam could easily be
construed as making the workplace "unpleasant and threatening" for any
employee who chooses to be, I mean, who is, offended by it. And
since the spam is an attempt to sell something, the spammer might be
treated as a prospective "vendor." This might be true especially if the
company's Web site says that all E-mail addresses are for "business
communications only."
Someone argued here a while ago that the employer (not the spammer)
might be held liable for failing to filter out porn spam, but I don't
see how this could apply if the spammer got the material past the
employer's spam filters-- and this is something that spammers try very
hard to do. That is, the employer HAS taken reasonable measures to
prevent the introduction of porn spam, and the spammer has bypassed
these measures. Should we Sue spammers for sexual harassment?
A: The only other defense is your not REQUIRED to read your email, you can say you want in house memos at work and not subscribe to the internet at home. Work