Not being an attorney, my perspective as to the legal implications of the Stored Communications Act of 1986 may mean little in a court of law. The awareness of the act, itself, is paramount for anyone in the world of domains or any facet of business online.

There are innumerable free email addresses, and I remember when I first had an email address of my very own @juno.com. That was so long ago it feels like I was in a different life. In fact, things have changed so much since the mid to late 1990's, it really was a different life.

It was really cool when I got my first domain name and began sending and receiving communications through my own domain. When I finally got the bright idea to park my own name as a domain, thus sending and receiving email through danny@dannypryor.com , I thought I was some kind of special genius. What I did not know was how those emails could be subpoenaed by any party seeking discovery in a civil proceeding.

As the owner and administrator of my own domains, any email address or data stored on those domains, including databases, could be subpoenaed. Unless I have my attorneys (everyone in business should have a CPA and an attorney) object to the subpoena, and unless that objection is successfully upheld, the information targeted in the subpoena must be given to the party seeking the data.

I always wondered why some of the bigger players in the industry still used email addresses @aol.com or @yahoo.com (I do have a couple of Yahoo! accounts) when they could easily be sending emails from a vanity domain such as bob@bobsmith.com. I do not know a bob@bobsmith.com, so please know this is only an example.

It would appear the reason is obvious, but it is only obvious if you know about the Stored Communications Act of 1986. There are provisions of the act that are positively brilliant. The SCA prohibits companies such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, MSN, Gmail, and others from divulging or releasing the communications and other files you elect to store on their servers. The act reads, in part, “… a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service.”

Wow!

Danny@dannypryor.com can be easily subpoenaed because my personal email address is maintained by me, and I do not have the protection under the third-party service provider provision. I am providing my own service. In this case, a subpoena served on my hosting company could be easily challenged by invoking the SCA, but a service upon me, personally, for my emails could only be challenged on the merits of relevancy and propriety. Leave your emails on Yahoo! servers, and you're doing just fine. Get the Yahoo! Plus account and download them to your own hard drive, you could be out of luck, particularly if you have a mistress or extra boyfriend.

Humor aside, I just happen to have learned about this whilst reading through some documentation in a pair of litigations I am following. I am not a party of the lawsuits; I am a curious onlooker because they involve both a former employer and a former client. How strange is that?

A subpoena was served on, of all companies, Yahoo! to try to grab all email communications of a potential witness in the case; but it turns out Yahoo! is only obligated to respond with the name of the person who holds the email account. All other communications are protected under the SCA.

Will I continue using danny@dannypryor.com or the other email addresses I have for the various domains I own? Of course I will! It is a great way to track who responds to what. It is a marketing tool for me. But the most important, and confidential emails I will send will be routed through my Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts. And if they are ever subpoenaed, for whatever reason, I will feel quite confident that everything and everyone I have emailed is going to be held in confidence.

As much as any law governing the online world, the SCA is one law everyone should research. Ask your own attorney about 18 U.S.C. § 2702. The paragraph cited hereinabove (attorney-speak) is from 18 U.S.C. § 2702 (a).

If you read it on your own, I suggest you make a pot of coffee.