A manager recently recoiled at the hardcore pornographic image that suddenly appeared on his computer. "Who would send such an advertisement?" he wondered.

It´s not hard to see that the problem of unsolicited commercial messages - also known as spam - is getting worse instead of better. Vulgar messages appear more often, and the sheer quantity of run-of-the-mill advertisements has gone from a trickle, to a torrent, to a flood.

Brightmail, maker of anti-spam software, says spam now accounts for 50 percent of all e-mail sent over the Internet. Adds Brightmail´s CEO, Enrique Salem, "In less than two years, spam messages have increased from 8 percent of all traffic to more than half - and we expect this trend to continue."

Manage Incoming E-mail
Spam proliferates because the so-called "barriers to entry" to e-commerce are extremely low. Only a few positive responses to a message - out of millions sent - can make a marketing effort worthwhile.

Also, spammers are getting more devious all the time. According to attorney Brian McMillan, spam-blocking software just a year or two old is not sophisticated enough to filter today´s onslaught. Says McMillan, a partner with Littler Mendelson, the world´s largest employment law firm, "Spammers can now create messages that look like they are coming from an e-mail address within the organization. They also stick invisible codes and symbols in between the letters of key words that anti-spam software would normally catch and filter out."

A survey of 1,100 employers by the American Management Association (AMA), the ePolicy Institute, and Clearswift puts a fine point on the problem of e-mail in general: Employees spend an average of 25 percent of their workday on e-mail, and the figure is rising.

Spam - as well as e-mail of a personal nature - can destroy the productivity of white-collar workers. As McMillan points out, "Having employees wade through unsolicited e-mails containing pornographic images and commercial advertisements is certainly not the way most employers want employees to spend their work time."

McMillan identifies another concern: legal liability. "Employers could face liability for their failure to sufficiently protect against and respond to offensive spam that reaches employees," he says. Courts already have come down hard on employers whose workplaces are so littered with pornographic images that they become harassing "hostile environments." McMillan advises that pornographic spam also can create a hostile environment, especially if the employer takes no action to prevent it. His advice:

· Instruct employees to bring inappropriate e-mails to the company´s attention.

· Reevaluate filtering software regularly to ensure it remains effective.

· Make sure employees know never to respond to spam.

· Prohibit personal use of the Internet.

Manage Internal E-mail
The AMA survey mentioned above revealed one striking fact: 14 percent of the companies surveyed had been ordered by a court or regulatory body to produce employee e-mail. Some companies, such as those in the brokerage industry, regularly monitor employee e-mail and store it for a certain length of time. But Nancy Flynn of the ePolicy Institute says she thinks it´s time for all organizations to do the same to protect themselves from legal liability.

Flynn, author of E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication, says "Employers ... drop the ball when it comes to educating employees about e-mail rules and risks." She notes that only 27 percent of the companies surveyed provide training in e-mail retention and deletion.

Besides having a retention/deletion policy, Flynn says, monitoring software is essential: "Management´s failure to check internal e-mail is a potentially costly oversight. Off-the-cuff, casual e-mail conversations among employees are exactly the type of messages that tend to trigger lawsuits, arm prosecutors with damaging evidence, and provide the media with embarrassing, real-life disaster stories."

Once you begin monitoring, you may not like what you find. The survey showed that 22 percent of the employers fired employees for violating e-mail policies. But it´s better to know what employees are up to than get blindsided by inappropriate or illegal behavior going on under your nose.

Flynn outlines a threefold approach to managing e-mail:

1. Establish written e-mail rules and a company policy.

2. Educate your people about risks and policy compliance.

3. Enforce e-mail policy with content security software that works in concert with the organization´s established e-mail rules and policies.

Concludes Flynn, "Whether you employ one part-time worker or 100,000 full-time professionals, any time you allow employees access to your e-mail system, you put your assets, future, and reputation at risk."