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>why companies keep around big, easily subpoena-able email databases.

Because in many jurisdictions it is required by law.

(edit) For publicly traded companies that is.

Eric Schmidt of Google claims to delete essentially all his e-mails:

http://www.slate.com/id/2249124/pagenum/all

Maybe for certain business activity, like I dunno, HIPAA related stuff. But I'd be shocked if there are any statutes requiring email retention across an entire organization.

i dont know the specifics but i'm fairly sure sarbanes oxley specifies that emails should be retained within their document retention guidelines.

I really doubt sarbox says anything about email.

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