Private Emails / Word as email editor

[blockcipher]

We are using Office XP/Outlook 2002, moving to Office 2007 by the end of the
year.

I have an odd issue where if someone sends a person an email marked as
private and the recipient has Word as their email editor they are able to
modify the email which they are not supposed to. If I have the recipient
change it to not use Word as their editor they are not able to modify the
original email.

Any ideas why Word would enable something they shouldn't be able to do? I
cannot find any supporting documentation from Microsoft on this issue.

Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Why, according to you, are they not supposed to be able to edit the message?
Which message format are we talking about here?

 

[blockcipher]

Hello Roady. Thanks for replying.

If the message is set to private and sent it to someone, and they try to
modify it, it says "This information is marked as private by its author and
cannot be changed". The user also cannot copy it. Getting this error shows
me that marking emails as private are supposed to work this way.

However, if the recipient has MS Word as their editor they can modify the
orginal text, etc. Somehow using MS Word as email editor breaks the security
on the message.

Let me know if I am misunderstanding how this works.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Aha, I see what you mean now. While this works a little like a content
protection feature it is not designed to be treated as such. The limitation
has also been removed from Outlook 2007. The limitation on such a message
doesn't make much sense of course. When I receive a message from a friend on
my business account, they also mark it as private. Having an editing
restriction doesn't make much sense then. The real feature of marking the
message as private is that it won't show to your colleagues in case you have
your inbox shared.

Also, items marked as private can still be copied or edited when pressing
Forward ;-)