Can anyone advise on whether or not as admin for a baord you can legally access/read posters PMs?

We have a situation where one member has been using the PM system to encoruage our members to use anither site in preference to our own.

We have warned him and other not to do it but this person persisted regardless.

Any help appreciated.

It is not ethical to do so.

However I do believe that there should be a 'report PM' button - you might like to suggest something in the suggestions forum

Just let users know PM's can be read in case of suspected abuse and I don't see any issues with it.

We do not read PMs as a matter of course/normal. We have a script that sweeps for banned/suspect words in various forms. We are too busy with our lives to read PMs ;-)

The only way that you can view PM's is to database dive or log in as a user.


However I had a spell where users thought that we could easily read any PM's, which just isn't true.

This is the para we have in our sign up rules/terms

Privacy

We respect everyone's right to privacy and therefore we ask that members do not post personal details (such as contact details/workplace details etc) of either themselves or anyone else in a public posting. Please use the PM (private message facility to do this). Where we suspect that a member is using our PM facility to abuse the rules or other activities deemed derogatory to other users or the boards in general we reserve the right to monitor messages sent via the PM system.

sounds fair enough

PM's use the banned words list and the "switch this word for that word" function too, eh? I've had to use it before to block promotion of another site - the spammer didn't realize his spamming was in vain as all links to his site pointed back to ours

LOL nice one Allen

Only problem is knowing all the URL's of other sites

On a legal standpoint it's difficult to say (not a lawyer)
however in the US a private business does have the legal right to do what they want with the e-mail so stretching it a bit I would have to believe that legally you own it and can do as you please.

Have not heard and would be very surprised to hear of anyone being found guilty of a crime for reading a users PM

Though as stated not very ethical (IMHO) and yes.... who has time to read that junk anyways as an Admin.

I've been pushing for a Report Abuse // Report Spam buttun for a while; but it always gets shot down one way or another lol

Your forums are not public. They are something that you offer to the public for free most likely. But they are not owned by the public. you have the legal right to do anything you want with the information posted to your site.

Now also anyone can sue you for anything. But you are God in your forums and if you want to be all knowing about what your members are doing and saying while at your site. It's your right.

Ethics should come into play. But then again ethics should also be at play with the spammers and scammers.