Employers Can Use eBlaster Spyware to Monitor Private Emails

Think using Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail at work protects you from your boss' prying eyes? Think again. New spy software essentially lets employers or parents co-pilot virtually any kind of e-mail account, including private Web-based e-mail accounts like Yahoo and Hotmail. . . . Think using Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail at work protects you from your boss' prying eyes? Think again. New spy software essentially lets employers or parents co-pilot virtually any kind of e-mail account, including private Web-based e-mail accounts like Yahoo and Hotmail. A new version of eBlaster spyware will secretly forward all e-mail coming and going through such Web-based accounts to a spy's e-mail, allowing anyone to "ride-along" even the supposedly private e-mail.

SPYWARE FIRM SpectorSoft Corp. which makes eBlaster, is hardly a stranger to controversy. But the new e-mail monitoring technology, which company president Doug Fowler described as "almost a wiretap," is sure to stir even more.

It's common for office workers to keep personal matters out of corporate e-mail; many set up free Web-based e-mail accounts at Hotmail or Yahoo to help separate work and private affairs. But eBlaster 3.0, released Wednesday by SpectorSoft, makes it easy for employers or other interested voyeurs to read all e-mail going in and out of almost any kind of e-mail account.

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