Europe’s human rights court ruled on Tuesday that companies can monitor their employees’ email if they are notified in advance, giving shape to a rapidly evolving area of the law at the intersection of technology, privacy and workers’ rights.

In doing so, judges are scaling back a previous ruling that had stirred unease in Europe, where privacy is viewed as a fundamental right. That earlier decision had taken a similar approach to existing law in the United States, which gives companies wide-ranging powers to monitor workplace communications.

The latest decision, by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, provides more protection by requiring companies to inform workers of their policies. Judges also urged European governments to establish safeguards against abuse, and said that businesses should consider using forms of monitoring that avoid infringing on an employee’s privacy.

The case centered on Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu, a Romanian man who had created a Yahoo Messenger account to communicate with clients. But his bosses summoned him on July 13, 2007, confronting him with a week’s worth of chat transcripts in which he talked with his brother and fiancée about personal matters. Two weeks later, he was fired.