Story highlights The European Court of Human Rights rules that employers' actions must be "proportionate"

An employee had argued that his legal right to private communications had been breached

Company presented employee with a transcript of his Yahoo Messenger communications

(CNN) Can your employers read the private communications you send while you're at work?

Well yes they can, under some circumstances, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

The case concerns that of a Romanian man, Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu, who worked for a private company in Bucharest as an engineer in charge of sales, according to the court judgment, issued Tuesday.

At his employer's request, Barbulescu created a Yahoo Messenger account to respond to client inquiries.

A false denial

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