When people talk about the problems with e-mail, the conversation usually turns to spam. There could, however, be a bigger problem brewing with the potential to cost companies a lot more than they pay to deal with unsolicited e-mail advertisements.

The study, conducted by Queen’s University in Belfast, examined employee use of business e-mail. The results are disturbing. According to the study, 28% of workers have sent sexually explicit material to a co-worker. Thirty-one percent used company e-mail to send such material to someone outside the company. The bigger the company, the greater the abuse. Of those who send sexual material, some 36% work for companies with more than 500 employees while only about 22% worked for companies with 20 or fewer workers.

The problem is more widespread in the UK and Australia than it is in the US.

This is a problem beyond the simple ethics involved. Survey respondents were asked if they would take legal action after seeing sexual material on a colleague’s computer. Sixteen percent said they would. And 51% of the respondents said they had been exposed to such material on a co-worker’s computer. That’s a lot of potential litigation. Messaging consultant Michael Osterman notes that Chevron paid $2.2 million a few years ago to employees who had received sexually explicit material via e-mail from other employees. “Another source says that more than one-quarter of Fortune 500 companies have been accused of allowing sexual harassment in the workplace because of an abuse of e-mail or the Web,” Osterman writes.

How likely is it a company will be sued? Osterman uses some math to calculate the odds: If 50% of employees in a 2,000-worker company have been exposed to material they find objectionable, and there is a 1-in-1,000 chance the employee will sue, “statistically, that means that there is a 63% chance that the company will be sued by at least one employee.”

The study was commissioned by SurfControl, a company that produces and sells e-mail and Web filtering software. Generally, I object to such software, but given the liability issues, I’m not sure companies have much of a choice. “Despite corporate efforts to train and educate staff on the risks associated with Internet communications, a surprising level of Web and e-mail abuse persists,” said Kevin Blakeman, president, the Americas, for SurfControl, in the press release announcing the study results. “No business can afford even one employee jeopardizing the entire organization through irresponsible and reckless Internet activity.”

Can a more aggressive communication and training effort deal with the problem, or will ethical employees who don’t abuse the company just going to have to get used to suffering Big Brother-like surveillance because of those who do?