Electronic Mail

Remember, E-Mail Can Be Permanent

SUMMARY: E-mail you send can have a very, very long shelf life.

When you send an electronic mail message to your recipient, as soon as your recipient receives the message, they will respond. Then they will probably delete the message. Then it is gone. Right?

Wrong!

Although you may think electronic mail messages as temporary notes between one person to another, there are many reasons why you should always consider what you write before you send it. Electronic mail message can survive a long, long time, for the following reasons, among others:

1) In most e-mail software, just because someone deletes a message doesn't mean the e-mail is gone. E-mail may remain in a trashcan until it is permanently deleted, and some people may never permanently delete their e-mail, meaning it could be accessible years from the time it was written!

2) E-mail servers at your ISP (Internet Service Provider), company, or your recipient's ISP or company may keep copies of your mail message. While many such servers used to delete old mail after a certain period of time to save disk space, two things are changing this at many places. One, disk space is getting a whole lot cheaper. And second, due to recent accounting rules, some companies are NEVER allowed to delete e-mail, meaning your message may stay around backed up on tape virtually forever!

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