CLICK AND DOUBLE CLICK: PRIVACY ISSUES AND BIG BROTHER ARE GROWING CONERNS ON THE INTERNET

If my e-mail is any indication, the use of this worldwide electronic messaging system is growing by leaps and bounds each day. Unfortunately, it's the unsolicited e-mail that's filling up my inbox.

While e-mail may be one of the most used portions of the Internet, it's also sorely misunderstood by many users. For one thing, e-mail is not private. I liken it to sending a postcard rather than a sealed letter.

It can be read by outsiders as it zips across the Internet. If sent at work, its contents can be scanned by your employer. The courts have generally upheld the rights of employers in terms of e-mail ownership.

Talk about Big Brother. One survey suggested that nearly 80 percent of all businesses are expected to monitor their employees' PC use by 2001.

Again, the courts may be to blame. Judges have held that employers are liable for their workers' actions and this may include e-mail. Take the recent case in which Chevron paid $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by female employees upset over an e-mail describing "25 reasons beer is better than women."A good site to learn more about e-mail is appropriately named: Everything e-mail.www.everythingemail.netThere's lots of practical information in the e-mail tips section. Don't forget to check out the e-mail glossary. Terms can be a real headache in this high-tech age.

There's also some good information on e-mail etiquette. For example, DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. That's considered shouting. Don't attach large files (over 50K) without getting the permission of the recipient. This is good advice. Someone used to send me programs through the e-mail and it took forever to download. The problem was I didn't know it was a large file and I restarted my e-mail program several times because I thought my computer had froze up.

E-mail attachments are also rich breeding ground for viruses. These may even come from people you know inadvertently, that is because some viruses duplicate your address book and send themselves to everyone you know.www.mcaffee.comYou can click over to their Anti-Virus Center to find out about the latest threats. The newest one is "FunLove," which McAfee characterizes as a "medium risk" virus discovered Nov. 9. There's a list of other recent viruses. Although there are a lot of free programs on the Internet, virus scans may be worth paying for. That's because there are new viruses every week, and the paid versions will automatically download the patches when you're surfing. Another great virus site is Symantec.www.symantec.com/us.index.htmlInterestingly enough, Symantec and ZDTV are launching a new weekly television program next February focusing on Internet security. It's called CyberCrime. It's an offshoot of their Monday-Thursday afternoon radio program. The hosts discuss dangerous viruses and other security problems on the Internet. You can check out the show at the site: www.cybercrime.comThere's an interesting article by one of the hosts on "sneaky software," which hits on another privacy issue. The New York Times reported in recent weeks that RealJukebox has an undocumented feature in its CD-playing software that spies on its 13.5 million users. Every time the program is started, it sends back personal information to RealNetworks' servers. With the news out, the company promptly apologized and issued a patch that disables the spying feature.

What other programs in our computer are talking to their parent companies while we're blindly surfing elsewhere? It's a little unnerving.

Discussion of privacy is not just limited to e-mail, especially at work. Employers are also keeping an increasing eye on where employees are surfing, and perhaps with good reason.www.surfwatch.comSurfWatch, a company that specializes in filtering software for home, school and office, estimates that almost 30 percent of worker activity on the Internet was not work-related. This is double the number of the first SurfWatch survey in 1998.

Of course, each computer tracks where it has gone through the "history." But with programs like SurfWatch, it's a lot easier for companies to mass monitor surfing patterns, and block out recreational sites.

SurfWatch is also a good program for parents as a way to filter out objectionable sites. If children go to unapproved sites, they simply won't open.

Cookies are another debate in the realm of Internet privacy. When you visit many of the major sites, it sends back small bits of information about you. (Nothing to the extent RealJukebox was doing.) It may result in advertising geared to your surfing tastes or the fact your don't have to re-enter your password each time. You can block or eliminate cookies yourself, but it may make your surfing experience slower. You can also turn to an anti-cookie program. One of the more well-known ones is NSClean.www.nsclean.comYou can also learn more about Internet privacy. It maintains that cookies can contain details on Web sites you've visited, activities in newsgroups, e-mail sent from your browser and more. You can download a free demo program to see what your computer remembers of your Web travels.

Paranoid yet? My prediction for the Year 2000 is that Internet privacy will increasingly be a hot button. What are your favorite sites on the Internet that deal with privacy? E-mail me at click@semissourian.com.

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams is the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.