They pay for the toilets too, but that doesn't mean they have surveillance access to everything you do in the bathroom.
Not saying that there might not be a good argument that they ought to have read access to company chats, but it certainly doesn't follow from the fact that they pay for it.
> They pay for the toilets too, but that doesn't mean they have surveillance access to everything you do in the bathroom.
It's only a matter of time before they drug test every flush. As Eric Schmidt said, "if you don't want your urine tested, maybe you shouldn't drink water at work."
Most big companies have a policy that any thing created on their computers is their property. Similarly, any information created on systems that they are paying for is theirs. If you were creating business value in the bathroom, then they might argue that they have access to it. If it were for labor and privacy laws, they might even have a legal claim to monitoring your brainstorms in the bathroom.
Actually, it does follow from the fact they pay for it. If it weren't for explicit rights carved out by privacy laws, they could put cameras in the bathrooms they own.
They pay for the toilets too, but that doesn't mean they have surveillance access to everything you do in the bathroom.
Not saying that there might not be a good argument that they ought to have read access to company chats, but it certainly doesn't follow from the fact that they pay for it.