Eventually, all billing and payments will be done electronically. It is less expensive to deliver bills electronically as well as make payments. A few companies have already gone “paperless” and one must receive an electronic bill as well as make an electronic payment. Over time, I think all companies will eventually implement paperless billing and payments.

An employee does have a right to privacy; however, when he or she is using company equipment including, email address and Internet access, he or she should not expect privacy. The company owns the equipment, email, Internet connection, and voicemail; therefore, it should have access to and monitor those. The company should set expectations through written policies and the culture of the company. A company I worked for encountered this exact problem. Our email account crashed and had to be completely reset. The reset also reset everyone’s passwords to a default. We each had to redo our individual passwords. We had an employee who was absent the day it happened. When she got back to work, she thought someone had reset only her password and accused the IT person of invading her privacy. She claimed he had no right to access her email or reset her password without her permission. She threatened to sue the company because they were “monitoring” her “personal” email. Needless to say, it went nowhere. The labor commission became involved and sided with the company. First of all, nobody invaded her privacy. Second, because the company owns the email account, they can access it at any time. Any emails sent or received from that address belong to the company.

Some of the challenges facing business using the Internet are security issues, fraud, and taxation. If a company is doing business via Internet, it has a legal obligation to protect its customers’ personal information. In addition, the