email and defamation

MinnyMinor

if a false allegation is repeated in an email to the accused is that published/defamation as email is not secure?

Example:
A emails B to say C said you did [insert illegal act]
Is that published/defamation?

seamus

No. Although email is not secure, the intention of the email is private and if it is later published/read by a third party through no fault of the original sender then the original sender is not liable for the defamation. As best I understand it.

Although email is not secure, it's intention is one-to-one private contact and not publication. Email is about as secure as your standard post (in that anyone in the delivery chain can read it).

In the example you give above, C may be liable for defamation because he said it to A, but A would not be subject to such liability unless he CCed someone else on the mail.

Tom Young

Course that email might be later published on the Internet and then we have a different issue altogether.