Are Private Conversations Accessible to Admins?

[Divinum Fiat]

One of our members asked if private conversations between members are readable by the admin or if records are kept. Does anyone know if, where and for how long private conversations between members are accessible?

Thank you.

 

[Shelley]

There have been instances on here where I would and should have brought staff into pcs due to questionable behaviour. That being said they seem to be more trouble than they are worth so I just switch them off and will only ever use pcs to contact staff. I could quite easily not have a PC/PM whatever you refer it as, as a feature.

I'm sure i have PCs switched off at my site I just don't feel the need for people to use or need them. If they want to chat privately there are plenty of chat messengers and other means to do so. Yeah,

Edit: oh, it's a support thread. Yeah I was thinking this was a discussion thread about PCs.

 

[Morgain]

I have PCs switched off on one site too. I would love to be able to permission PCS.
- a usergroup can only contact me e.g. newcomers.
- a usergroup can only contact each other in that group + me ( a workteam)
- a usergroup can only contact a usergroup or several usergroup/s I allocate them.

But I couldn't get anyone to do an addon for it.
Would save a lot of trouble.

 

[DRE]

Like dude said, just put pms can be read in your TOS and like the other dude said, even hosts can read pms. I also agree that most of them have no time to look through people's pms but still, think about it for a sec, remember when Sony Playstation Network got hacked real bad? Well that happened right after Sony fired a bunch of IT guys. The coincidence is too much. People need to stop assuming hackers are always outside sources. Some hackers have real good paying jobs and work for major companies. When I worked at a major internet service provider, my coworker got mad over some personal relationship stuff and created some kind of spam robot and screwed up our chat support system. That's just one real life example I can give you from personal experience. I could go on but I'll stop there. So yeah... I think all webmasters should at least try to learn how to maintain their own server at one point to cut out the middleman. I tried learning last year but got too busy with school. I'll try again later.

 

[DRE]

I have PCs switched off on one site too. I would love to be able to permission PCS.
- a usergroup can only contact me e.g. newcomers.
- a usergroup can only contact each other in that group + me ( a workteam)
- a usergroup can only contact a usergroup or several usergroup/s I allocate them.

But I couldn't get anyone to do an addon for it.
Would save a lot of trouble.

Sounds like a good idea. I have it so that noobs can't send pms. They would have to be promoted manually to regular membership in order to send pms. This ends up discouraging a lot of spammers who join just to use the pm system then find out they can't, so they just leave.

 

[erich37]

If a Google administrator was found to be reading emails without explicit authorized access ... they would be terminated. Not sure a Google admin would risk it. I'm sure Google's Terms of Service would state what access they have.

come on, Google knows each and every URL you are looking at.
It's their business-model.

Is this "Privacy" ?

 

[MagnusB]

I always tell my members that they shouldn't consider the PC system as private, I might read it. I usually don't look at them or monitor them, but if I suspect it is being used for spam or abused in some way, I check it or search the database for what I suspect. I have done this twice so far, once I searched for a specific URL, another time I searched for a specific member. I did not read any conversations at any of those points, but I would have if I had gotten any hits.

I am surprised anyone considers anything they submit to a website as private.

 

[Morgain]

I always tell my members that they shouldn't consider the PC system as private, I might read it. I usually don't look at them or monitor them, but if I suspect it is being used for spam or abused in some way, I check it or search the database for what I suspect. I have done this twice so far, once I searched for a specific URL, another time I searched for a specific member. I did not read any conversations at any of those points, but I would have if I had gotten any hits.

I am surprised anyone considers anything they submit to a website as private.

Agree - but NOT surprised people assume privacy. One to one exchanges are resemble hard copy post and this has strong social taboos of privacy on it. Those less experienced at online life will think in terms of such offline analogy.

Someone suggested it would be better for members to use external services such as Skype or MSN to chat one to one. I don't think this is a good option to encourage. We go to endless trouble to attract and hold our users onsite. It doesn't make sense to then push them off on to another service if they are both connected to us.

 

[MagnusB]

It is in the standard xF Terms and Rules:

All Content you submit or upload may be reviewed by staff members. Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential.

My personal opinion is that it should be avoided as far as possible, but IMO an abuse of the system is more of a privacy issue than the occassional hunt for abuse. If your members considers it to be private, you should educate them to what your policy is and how you handle potential abuse of the system. Then your members have to decide if they trust you or not.

 

[Digital Doctor]

It is in the standard xF Terms and Rules:

All Content you submit or upload may be reviewed by staff members. Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential including in the Conversation section

 

[MagnusB]

How is All Content unclear? You are better off clarifying outside your terms and rules, that way you don't do something stupid legal wise and it is a higher chance of your members actually reading it.

 

[erich37]

so much for "Privacy".
Even Bloomberg was spying on their customers.... not with the intent to avoid "spammers and scammers" from their Bloomberg-Forums, but with the single intent to make money

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/hot-stock-minute/bloomberg-spying-bombshell-no-biggie-105825258.html


Yahoo and Gmail are also "reading" (machine-reading, not human reading) your Emails:
http://owni.eu/2011/10/28/yahoo-and-gmail-are-reading-your-emails/
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-03-n78.html

 

[Alpha1]

Try uploading a nude picture to your facebook private conversation or type something highly problematic about terrorism or drug trade and check how that goes. Facebook is very much responsible for what activity they make possible.

Bells will go ringing and your account will get flagged for review. As it should be when it concerns serious offenses.

For those of you who still think that they are not responsible for what happens in their conversation system: times have changed. Over the last decade I have seen more than a few competing websites go down, get raided, prosecuted for what was posted by their members. Do you really think that you can allow your members to commit very serious offenses on your website? If you have a site for kids then its your job to be proactive against pedophiles. If you have a site for addiction then its your job to keep it free from drug trafficking. If you have a site about firearms, then you better prevent international arms trade going down on your website. etc. If your website does not fall in one such danger zone then you are lucky.

But to state that members their message should never be read seems as utopian to me as people who believe that everything on the web should be free.

I am not saying that anyone should read their members general private messages, but serious abuse of a website and breach of laws should be dealt with. Active and proactive. At least on big boards dealing with topics prone to very serious problems.

I use scripts that screen the messages of my members and flag up potentially problematic. To keep privacy up, I am the only one who has access to need to skim & review flagged messages. I clearly advertise this to my members. I hate to do it but its necessary until I find ways to fully automatize the process. In the last decade I have encountered Charles Manson Family members preying on female members, murderers, stalkers, international drug traffickers, right wing extremist nuts, scammers, pedophiles, hackers, live suicides, to name few nuggets you can encounter on a big board. Access to the conversation system has saved lives and has prevented serious legal problems.

Ideally this should indeed not be, so it would be nice if someone comes up with a better approach to deal with abuse in conversations.