A pharmaceutical researcher develops a new product formula, recording his work in an electronic notebook. The company e-mails the new formula to its contract manufacturers and must assure that they don’t mistakenly revert to older, out-of-date formulas.
Concurrently, the business development group is in confidential talks with other firms for licensing and marketing the new product, sharing proprietary information with potential competitors. The company’s attorneys, meanwhile, are busy culling servers for documents responsive to a pending product lawsuit and aren’t having much luck when a particularly embarrassing memo magically appears on the Internet.
The common issue in all four scenarios is the underlying trust — or risk — that companies assume in dealing with creators, senders and recipients of content.