Fred Langa's current newsletter mentions the problem...
Preventing Email Forwarding
Fred: The situation is this: Frequently I need to send an e-mail that must not be forwarded to anyone, that is, the label Forward must be useless. The main reason is that the information contained in the e-mail must be considered personal, and although I know that it's easy to copy/paste the information, my boss wants that the destination user can't forward the e-mail by a simple click on the Forward label.
In the site of Microsoft there's an article about this matter, but it seems the first part of something more and it doesn't explain how it works with detail. The link is office.microsoft.com
Thanks for your help. Regards, Valdes Mata Francisco Javier
The Microsoft article is about encryption; you can send someone an encrypted message, but there's still nothing that would prevent them from forwarding a copy of the unencrypted text, or from sharing the password, so I don't think that will really help you.
The only systems I've seen that even marginally work to impede simple email forwarding involve posting the actual message on a private, secure web site, and sending the recipient a private URL to that one page. They then log in and can read and reply to the message via a form on the website (and not through actual email); the message never physically resides on the recipient's PC, and nothing except the private URL travels as email. With some suitable coding of the private web page (eg "right click disable" and HTML obfuscation) you can make it a little harder for the recipient to manipulate a message. But it's not much of an impediment: All the recipient has to do is take a screen capture, or even copy the text longhand or with a digital camera, and then they can do whatever they want with the copy of the supposedly private message.
This is a case where technology probably isn't the answer. Rather, some kind of private agreement, or even a legally-binding nondisclosure agreement drawn up by a lawyer, might be better to protect your interests.
I noticed that B.K.Myers has already posted the Microsoft URL. |
