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Answers

Top Ten reasons for old e-mails to disappear It's 2001. Do you know where your e-mail will end up?

By Jeff Ubois, Disappearing Inc., Special to ZDNet

You may think your electronic mail is private correspondence between two parties, just like those old-time letters of days gone by. But, thanks to the new-fangled features of e-mail, however, that conclusion is far too simple. To demonstrate the importance of controlling where your e-mail ends up, Disappearing Inc. co-founder Jeff Ubois has compiled a Top 10 list based on notable e-mail horror stories. #10.) These walls can talk. Everyone has sent an e-mail he or she later regretted. Take the English woman Claire Swire, who sent a naughty e-mail to her sometime boyfriend, Bradley Chait, who then excitedly forwarded it to some friends. Naturally, those friends couldn't resist sending it to a few of their own mates. To date, the e-mail has been sent to more than 10 million people around the world.

#9.) Victim of circumstance. Any interaction you've had with an individual via e-mail is copied and stored on multiple servers and can be subpoenaed at any time. While on her honeymoon, Catherine Davis sent several private e-mails to her friends back home. Unfortunately, that same laptop computer contained some deleted e- mails from her friend Monica Lewinsky. After Ken Starr subpoenaed the laptop, both the Monica e-mails and the honeymoon correspondence were published--and Catherine's husband, along with the rest of the world, found out that her honeymoon might have been premature.

#8.) The Digital Miranda. What you e-mail can be used against you. Since few can resist e-mailing humorous forwarded jokes to friends, wouldn't it be nice to know they are not lingering in company files? Chevron would have been happy if that had been the case when an e- mail containing jokes such as "25 reasons beer is better than women" was used along with other evidence in a sexual-harassment claim. The company ended up settling the case for $2.2 million.

#7.) PC does not stand for "personal computer." You never know what can come back to haunt you. This was a tough lesson for more than 20 Northwest Airlines workers who were among those suspected of coordinating a sickout. In an effort to uncover incriminating e-mail, their home computers were seized for forensic evidence. Along with their e-mails, other personal records on their computers were examined.

#6.) Get with the times. The technological age has ushered out pen and ink in favor of digital correspondence. Shouldn't we also modernize the paper shredder and shred our e-mails?

#5.) Your people are your most valuable asset. It's easier to have an e-mail policy management system in place than it is to rehire a valuable part of your staff. The New York Times learned this when it fired more than 20 of its staff for violating its e-mail and Internet policies to shield itself from liability.

#4.) "Water cooler" conversations are meant to be transient. Some things are just meant to be kept inside company walls. The Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) would probably agree. After Siemens Solar Industries bought ARCO's solar division, it was disappointed to learn that the division was overvalued and sued ARCO to recover some of its money. One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was an e-mail sent between two mid-level ARCO engineers saying, "As it appears that [ARCO's solar technology] is a pipe dream, let Siemens have the pipe."

#3 Big Brother is watching you. According to the American Management Association, 45 percent of U.S. businesses report they monitor employees' use of electronic communications, including e-mail. Are you sure yours isn't one of them?

#2.) Every vote may not count, but every e-mail does. Would you think twice about what you said if you knew it was being recorded? Unlike phone calls or verbal conversations, e-mail correspondence leaves a permanent record of everything you said. Jeb Bush and his press secretary probably wish they had known that. Despite Jeb's "recusal," the Gore team found evidence that the governor had in fact meddled in the Florida dispute. After learning that some voters had complained about phone calls from the Gore camp urging them to put pressure on local authorities, Jeb Bush e-mailed the information to key aides with this tag: "This is a concerted effort to divide and destroy our state." His press secretary responded: "Ve have our vays also. I'm working on this."

#1.) It's easy and it's smart. Allowing your e-mails to roam unchecked is neither.

Jeff Ubois is co-founder of Disappearing Inc., a San Francisco developer of e-mail policy management systems and services that allow companies to mitigate the risks associated with e-mail.

Copyright (c) 2001 ZD Inc. All Rights Reserved. ZDNet and ZDNet logo are registered trademarks of ZD Inc. Content originally published in Ziff Davis Media publications is the copyrighted property of Ziff Davis Media. Copyright (c) 2001 Ziff Davis Media. All Rights Reserved. Titles of Ziff Davis Media publications are trademarks of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2001