Work Disabling Personal Internet Email Accounts

I found out yesterday that they will be disabling the ability to log into personal Internet email accounts, instant messaging and chat rooms.

Honestly, I never use IM or chat rooms at work. I know people got fired for using IM and chat stuff for abusing that. So I thought that was already a big no no. But personal email?! It is sorta insane.

The thing that annoys me most is they say it is for legal reasons. What legal reasons? It is lame. If someone wanted to steal company secrets (though what the big secrets are is beyond me other than perhaps a handful of people in editoral), it isn't as if they can't do it in some other manor. So I think that is a crock.

If it is for productivity reasons, then say that. I know I keep my mail window open all day. But isn't that better than me having people contact me via my work email and thus clogging up the mail server? I am not going to do that honestly. But I suspect a lot of people will do just that to get around this personal email ban. So it seems so backwards in terms of company resources.

It is so corporate though. They shoot themselves in the foot repeated. *shakes head* I wish I still worked for a smaller company at times like this.

I am really hoping that yahoo groups is not considered part of this. But honestly, I am not sure if they will be ban as there are chat abilities built in and such. So I don't know. I can always set up some mail filter on my mail account & a yahoo group so I can get some things at least. But if they decide yahoo groups is a problem too, I am not sure what to do.

If anyone has any suggestions on ways to get around this, please let me know. Heaven knows, runbox isn't even large enough as a personal email service that it might get banned. But then again, it might. So I would like a back up plan.