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The announcement at the top of a ZipLip.com e-mail says it all: "This message will self-destruct in 24 hours."
Santa Clara-based ZipLip.com Inc. was formed in June by Kon Leong, who is fed up with what he considers a burgeoning invasion-of-privacy problem.
"A lot of people aren't aware of how easy it is to snoop into e-mail," said Mr. Leong, who was born in China, where he says government scrutiny into his family's activities led him to become a lifelong privacy advocate.
Today, online privacy for Americans isn't as much from the government as it is by employers and attorneys, who see e-mail as a viable way of getting the goods on someone, according to Mr. Leong.
He concedes that it's understandable that employers monitor employee e-mail because of the liability they can face if e-mail is subpoenaed during a lawsuit.
Microsoft Corp., for example, has had difficulty explaining some of the subpoenaed e-- mails it released for the Department of Justice's antitrust case against the tech giant. One of the most infamous e-mails in the case came from CEO Bill Gates himself. It reads, "Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to...