Instant Messaging Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for Safe IM Communication

By Nancy Flynn
Amacom, July 2004
224 pages, $19.95

As the pun in the title notes, instant messaging started life as a way to let teenagers, like, communicate. But now that IM is omnipresent in business, the time has come to take it more seriously. Flynn is head of The ePolicy Institute, a consulting and training firm in Ohio, and while she goes on too long about the pros and cons of IM, the book is helpful in exploring the legal issues involved in its use. After all, IM is a form of written correspondence, which means that it can be subpoenaed, so your organization needs written policies about how it is to be used, stored and managed.