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SRJC threatens to sue students, faculty over private e-mail accounts
Published: Friday, May 8, 2009 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 8, 2009 at 8:20 a.m.
Santa Rosa Junior College is threatening to sue several hundred students and faculty members who have created private e-mail addresses that use the college’s name without permission.
The college is attempting to stamp out Yahoo, Google and other e-mail accounts that include the letters “SRJC” or the words “Santa Rosa Junior College” in the user’s name, such as JohnDoe_SRJC@yahoo.com.
Critics say the endeavor is a waste of time and a local attorney said the college’s legal threat is without merit.
Rachel Hamilton, a SRJC student, said the college was meddling in other people’s business.
“It’s not up to the college to mandate what your e-mail is,” Hamilton said. “That’s just silly.”
But administrators said using the college’s name in e-mail addresses could potentially confuse people.
“Unless they have been given permission to use that, we are asking them not to use it,” said Ken Fiori, director of computing services at the college.
Fiori created the policy to make it easy for people to distinguish between official college e-mails and ones from people who were simply using its acronym.
While he has not received any complaints about people trying to use the acronym maliciously to trick people, the possibility existed for that to happen, Fiori said.
The college offered little explanation when it announced the crackdown in e-mail messages sent to all faculty Tuesday and people it had identified as violators of its new policy.
To enforce the policy, administrators cited an obscure educational code they said makes it “illegal” for students and faculty to use the school’s acronym without permission. The college threatened legal action against anyone who doesn’t comply.
In an e-mail to faculty, one administrator described it like this:
“Let’s say I’m a student named Mary Kay Rudolph and I have a Yahoo account,” said Mary Kay Rudolph, vice president of academic affairs. “But, instead of asking to be mkrudolph@yahoo.com I am mksrjc@yahoo.com. Or, I am santarosajuniorcollege2@yahoo.com. Those are both illegal.”
But some faculty dismissed the claim as overreaching, or said it would be a waste of the college’s time and money to enforce.
Jay Behmke, an intellectual property attorney at Santa Rosa law firm Carle, Mackie, Power & Ross, said the college’s claim was without merit and people could continue using the acronym.
“People can certainly put it in their personal e-mail addresses,” Behmke said Thursday after reading the educational code the college cited. “That’s absolutely fair use.”
But the college’s legal staff disagrees and might pursue legal action against anyone who does not comply, Fiori said.
The computing services department generated a list of several hundred e-mail addresses that used the college’s name inappropriately, and sent warning letters to those accounts, Fiori said.
If the recipients do not comply, the college might try to learn their identity from Yahoo or Google, or it might search through its archives of faculty and student e-mails to locate information that could identify the e-mail users, Fiori said.
Sonoma State University does not have a similar policy, said Samuel Scalise, its chief information officer.
“I’m unaware of that ever being an issue,” Scalise said.
On the SRJC campus Thursday, students said it was easy to tell the difference between an official e-mail from the college and one where someone is simply using the school’s acronym as part of an e-mail address.
“I don’t see it as a problem,” said student Erick Aguirre. “They have official e-mail, you know, something@santarosa.edu.”
The college’s Web site is www.santarosa.edu. So official e-mails from the college are in the form of JohnDoe@SantaRosa.edu.
Others agreed that they would not be confused by an e-mail that uses the college’s acronym.
“Not if you see @yahoo.com at the end,” said Oswald Filho.
But most of the reaction from people has been positive, Fiori said.
J. Davis Mannino, a professor of psychology, said he understood the college’s decision.
“I could see how misuse of the SRJC name might be used ... to misrepresent the college or worse yet solicit funds, fees, or money,” he said in an e-mail Thursday.
Other faculty members responded with polite disagreement when Rudolph announced the new policy Tuesday in an e-mail.
“It looks like a bureaucratic decision,” said Roger Mercer, an adjunct faculty member who teaches chemistry. “They are interpreting it way too broadly and they don’t have the right to do this.”
Mercer, who uses “SRJC” in his non-university e-mail address, was one of several hundred recipients that Fiori e-mailed to insist they stop using their unsanctioned addresses.
“I’m not violating the law,” Mercer said Thursday.
If the college is successful in eliminating the use of “SRJC” in e-mail address, it remains to be seen how far it will pursue the policy. A search on Facebook resulted in “SRJC” returning more than 500 results. Many Facebook groups use the acronym, including groups named “SRJC Campus Police” and “SRJC Track 09.”
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