Admins who read members private messages?

The person running the forum is obiously insecure about what people are saying. I think it's horrible that they would actually do that, considering private messages are intended to be private.

I have seen add ons like this and have been admin on forums with this add on installed, but never read PMs just for the sake of reading them. There was always a reason behind it such as abuse by a certain member to get the 'whole' story without waiting for replies from parties A, B and C.

When I used to own forum or was even admin on forums I didn't read PM's unless there is something that warrants the need to read them suck as another member harassing another via PM then I would read the PMs.

When I owned a MyBB forum, I did indeed have this plugin installed on it. However, it was only used for when new users (or old) would join the site, and just start PMing everybody to leave the site and go to join theirs. I only discovered it, because someone had reported the PM to me and I began looking into it and found out that it was true. It's great that administrators are capable of doing that, but certainly shouldn't abuse ones privacy rights.

I have a forum but certainly don't have any add ons. Agree that is disgusting. Once caught you start losing members. No one trusts you.

ah... now thats playing nasty... according to "global privacy policy" you are not allowed to read users' PMs... but yeah if you get reports then its another thing...

Well it happens more than you think and by law so long as you clearly state that they can be read then besides frowning upon it there is little you can do.

Wow, you should tell a bunch of people who it was so we can stay away from him/her or better yet report them to the cybercrime.gov
Just curious. If you pm them why wouldn't they be able to read it?
What was it that you said that the person would be mad at you for?

You should defiantly name and shame this loser. Private messages are supposed to be private, hence the name private messaging.

This is why administrators shouldn't read members pms.. They will always see a message they do not like and will not be able to stop themselves from questioning people about it which will in turn ruin their reputation and make people lose trust in them.

admins shouldnt read members pm's, its not right, theyre listening in on peoples private conversations.

people do it to make sure people arent sending offensive stuff, but instead of reading all pm's on my forum, i have a report pm button instead, so if someone gets an offensive pm, they can report it and send a copy to admin.

I wouldn't read PM's unless it got reported, there's no need to otherwise.

I have to say this is wrong on every level. Just because someone has a forum doesnt allow them to read their members private messages i wouldnt trust the forum as far as i could throw it.

They should at least state somewhere that they read the private messages, well somewhere where members can clearly see it. Either way I wouldn't support somebody doing that.

Well, he already is telling a bunch of people, and honestly reporting this particular incident to Cybercrime.gov would be wasting your own time.
As far as I know (In the United States at least) there are no laws concerning reading plaintext entries in your own database.

If you take a look at http://www.cybercrime.gov//reporting.htm you won't find anything for intrusion of privacy. I guess the closest to that would be "Computer Intrusion (i.e hacking) but considering the content is stored in the database (in which the webmaster owns) he's not really intruding (technically) into anything.

On another note, private messages are not encrypted (on default installation of most forum software's anyway) - they're private, but shouldn't be regarded as a secret.
I'm not in any way implying that it was acceptable, but I just don't understand such outrage.

I know a number of bigboards that openly state they do monitor private messages (I don't know how in depth they go) to ensure the safety of their own community.

As a member of any forum, as long as the forum administrator is openly stating that they are/will read private messages, I'm completely fine with it. It's not like I'll ever use private messages on some forum for trade secrets or anything.

Well I would never read their provate messages but maybe profile comments and posts. If a member wanted to report a pm they are free to do so.

I would never read one of my members messages. Sure, they might be on my forum, but they still have a right for privacy. However, on the flip side, if there is a reason that I need to read a PM for a reason such as hatred, threats, spamming, or anything, then I would use my admin rights and read it, but never for general discussions. Besides, if my members knew I read their messages, I am sure they would leave. So, why ruin your reputation?

Why would anyone do it to your site it is not harming anyone is my question? and if that is what they stoop to attack people then they need naming and shaming. In all years people had given me ftp access I have never given our passwords or broken any site, the issue I have is when you help people out and they get attack it automatically puts you in the firing line. Thing is this happen at the same time as the ban on another site, if you have the ip have you been able to track it's location?