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Comment by ararar | Hacker News Reader

Most Fortune 500 companies have (I am extrapolating wildly here since I haven't worked at all of them) email retention policies that specify that emails will not be kept past a certain time after reception. So when an opposing lawyer requires the emails that were sent a year ago ... well, those were deleted as per policy. It's weird that if the companies had a policy to immediately delete them it would be "bad" but if they delete them after 30 days due to "storage" reasons and a clear, global, openly stated policy, it's OK. It doesn't stop someone from stuffing old emails in a folder.

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> Most Fortune 500 companies have (I am extrapolating wildly here since I haven’t worked at all of them) email retention policies that specify that emails will not be kept past a certain time after reception.

Those policies are suspended for materials subject to a litigation hold, whether triggered by actual or reasonably foreseen litigation or an active investigation for which they have been notified to preserve evidence (which is mostly a formalized case of reasonably foreseen litigation) and if they aren’t, the company can be sanctioned for destroying evidence (and adverse inferences can be drawn from the destruction of evidence in the litigation, separate from the penalties for destroying evidence.)

> It’s weird that if the companies had a policy to immediately delete them it would be “bad” but if they delete them after 30 days due to “storage” reasons and a clear, global, openly stated policy, it’s OK.

Actually, deleting either way would be sanctionable where a retention requirement of the type at issue applies.

In my experience, the email retention policy is guided by whatever regulations with which the company has to comply. I’ve worked at places with insanely long retention policies because of that.

We sell VoIP B2B and our retention time is measured in multiples of years. Businesses like to sue each other and proof of phone calls or work on their phone lines can be subpoenaed.

Wow. The companies I've worked at only kept old emails if there was a litigation hold. Otherwise, the email retention policy was enforced. It seems to me a double edged sword that slightly favors the deleter.

I think that you will find that your industry is an outlier.

Wouldn't that be more reason for having less time tho?

It’s infuriating. At Amazon my sent emails only survive for 30 days. I try to use Slack for everything because otherwise I lose it so fast.

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