Information Technology: Giving Customers The Complete Picture

Corporate counsel must be aware of how their companies’ IT products and claims are positioned. As customers seek singlesource solutions to IT privacy, security, data integrity and data management, IT companies may find it all too easy to claim their products deliver these solutions. Yet electronic data can be accessed, duplicated and used in multiple ways, or altered or deleted, whether accidentally or maliciously. Companies claiming to address every concern leave themselves open to criticism, loss of market share and potential liability for misrepresentation.

For example, email-filtering software only fends off viruses in email; separate solutions address instant messaging viruses. The Federal CAN-SPAM Act prohibits certain unsolicited commercial email, and multiple technological approaches are needed to ensure that no employee can send email to prohibited addresses. Also consider California’s new Web site privacy policy law, which took effect July 1, 2004. Companies gathering