E-meetings are regularly used by many commerce and consulting service providers. An e-meeting, like a traditional meeting, is a prearranged gathering for the purpose of discussing business or other affairs. Telephone technology has long eliminated the need for a physical presence at meetings, but the underlying technology of the Internet — which copies and then transfers content from private server to private server — results in novel legal difficulties for e-meeting participants.
Information exchanged during e-meetings is subject to the same constitutional protections and requires the same privilege precautions as traditional meetings. The nature of the Internet requires that the content of e-meetings be recorded; as the digitized recording is passed from one third-party computer to the next, each computer must make a copy of the data. Consequently, those who seek to preserve e-meeting confidentiality must take actions unnecessary for traditional meetings.
