Maybe saving email isn’t that great of an idea…

January 30, 2006

An “article in Wired”:http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70100-0.html clued me into the existence of “this searchable interface to Enron corporate email”:http://orange.sims.berkeley.edu/~atf/enron/enron.cgi. A few minutes searching pulls up some interesting stuff, like…er…”Enron’s email retention policy”:http://orange.sims.berkeley.edu/~atf/enron/enron.cgi?artid=232395.

bq. …Imagine if we were required to sift through and digest 12-24 months of e-mail traffic. This has happened to a number of companies in litigation the US( who have subsequently changed their retention policies). Frankly, the Microsoft antitrust case opened a lot of eyes to the dangers of not having a policy. In that case, the discovery by the Dept of Justice produced some very damaging e-mails that were later used to effectively cross-examine Bill Gates and others. It is unbelievable what some people will put in an e-mail that they would never dream of putting in a “written” document…

Other moments are skin-crawlingly embarrassing. I am sure many of us have emails like this; even so we’d hate to see them go public:

bq. I just love the way you look at me. I can’t wait to see you again. you’ve definitely got some cuddle time coming to you.

Makes me wonder what FERC was trying to accomplish when it released these email messages wholesale.

Of course, it’s also scarily addictive to see what comes up next. I hate the FERC for putting me in this position.

bq. Do you want to go see a movie tonight? I was thinking about seeing “The Mothman Prophecies” at 4:35.

*No! Don’t do it! Anything but _The Mothman Prophecies_!*

Posted in Technology