JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: OK, here is something that may surprise you. On the other hand, it may not. The e-mails that come to you may not be as private as you might think. CNN's technology correspondent Rick Lockridge is in our newsroom at the Big Board computer to explain to those of us who are too dumb to understand this. Rick, very slowly explain to us what you're talking about here.</s>RICK LOCKRIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, you're far too modest. I've talked to you about this. HTML mail is what we're talking about, and usually when you get HTML mail, which is right behind me here, it's span. For example, I never signed up to get Car</s>CHEN: All right. But is it the content of what is in my e-mails if I send them to somebody else or if somebody sends something to me, or is this just where I sent or who sent something to me?</s>LOCKRIDGE: Well, if you were to add something to what you sent -- comments, for example -- say you were conducting your salary negotiations via HTML mail -- you probably wouldn't -- but if you did, they could find out what your -- your lowest offer that you would take would be. And would be a bad thing to have happen in business negotiations. So any comments you would add might be visible to somebody who was snooping on you.</s>CHEN: Well, we wouldn't like that to happen, and is this true on all systems, I mean, any kind of e-mail service?</s>LOCKRIDGE: No, the popular ones like Microsoft Outlook, for example, and Netscape's mail programs, those are vulnerable. However, programs used by millions of users, such as AOL Mail and also Hotmail -- Web-based mail, Hotmail -- are not known to be vulnerable at this time.</s>CHEN: All right, Rick Lockridge, our technology correspondent explaining to those of us. It took a little time to get that through my head, Rick. Thanks a lot.
HTML E-Mails Can Compromise Privacy