Get serious about e-mail archiving

This column has discussed e-mail archiving quite a bit, and I've received a substantial amount of feedback on the topic from many readers of this column. Many thanks to those that have written to share their experiences and practices with e-mail archiving, as well as their views on the pros and cons of saving e-mail.

Based on everything I've heard from those in the trenches, coupled with recent developments in government, I believe the archiving issue will come to a head in the next six months. What I mean by that is that organizations large and small (but particularly large) will have to do two things in the near term.

First, in conjunction with legal counsel knowledgeable about e-mail retention requirements at the state and federal levels, organizations will have to create a set of e-mail policies to help them conform with all regulations relevant to their respective industries, as well as to those regulations that apply to all employers in general.

Because much of the e-mail traffic flowing through these organizations constitutes " records, " they must develop policies specifying how long to retain these records, the requirements for which vary from one year to 30 years.

Second, organizations must implement a system that can reliably archive the records and make them available quickly and efficiently when necessary. While some organizations will need to implement sophisticated archiving systems, for other organizations simpler backup systems might suffice.

The reason for getting serious about e-mail retention is simple: Government regulators and politicians are getting serious about the issue. For example, in early August, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined six financial services firms a total of $10 million for not retaining e-mail properly. Even Martha Stewart's e-mail messages have been requested for presentation to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

While some may continue to find comfort in the hope that a lack of an e-mail retention policy, or a policy that destroys all e-mail after 60 or 90 days, means that e-mail messages simply disappear into the ether without a trace, that hope will be short lived. The time to get serious about e-mail retention is now.

Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research, a market research firm that helps organizations understand the markets for messaging, directory and related products and services. He can be reached by clicking here.

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