E-mail: When E stands for embarrassing

Author
Aron Schatz
Posted
May 17, 2002
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1414
Tags Software

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Bill Gates Oracle and others can't seem to keep their email private...

The Microsoft chairman, who's been stung by e-mail several times, got caught yet again discussing schemes against a corporate enemy in e-mail messages admitted as evidence in antitrust testimony last week. In one note to top executives, Gates said he approved of Microsoft's association with the Web Services Interoperability Group (WS-I), code-named "foo," as long as Sun Microsystems was kept on the sidelines.

This comes only a month after a January 1999 e-mail surfaced in court in which Gates described a plan to use the Windows operating system to promote Microsoft's audio and video delivery software over that of rival RealNetworks.



Gates isn't alone in the court of public embarrassment over e-mail better forgotten.

Just this week, Oracle and its business partner Logicon were accused by a California legislator of defrauding the state of California, based on an incriminating e-mail exchange. In another case, the New York attorney general uncovered embarrassing e-mail from Merrill Lynch analysts, including former Internet Pied Piper Henry Blodget, in which they privately criticized dot-com stocks that they were at the same time publicly promoting to clients. Prosecutors this week said settlement talks in the case are ongoing.
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News.com has more email blunders.

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