News / Press

Destructive Email Retention Policies Dangerous for Today’s Businesses
ArcMail white paper discusses role of archiving and destructive retention policies in business; archiving provides greater protection for today’s email-laden organizations

Shreveport, LA. - February 19, 2008 - Given the role and popularity of email in business today, companies are faced with a significant dilemma of how to balance email security with storage. According to a new white paper from ArcMail Technology, entitled “Email Archiving vs. Destructive Retention Policies,” the dilemma is forcing companies to question if and when is it more appropriate to archive email versus implement a destructive retention policy that deletes email after a specified length of time. While there are several arguments for destructive retention policies, ultimately, the threat of litigation, industry and government compliance regulations and the challenge of maintaining employee productivity are driving more organizations to adopt email archiving policies.

"For this paper, we focused on the three core arguments that advocates of destructive retention continue to use to support the practice of simply deleting emails, and the three core arguments why archiving is a better solution," said Todd Gates, chief executive officer of ArcMail Technology. "While the dilemma between security and storage is a major concern for companies, it is being eclipsed by the importance of companies to protect themselves in the event of litigation, and to ensure that they continue to comply with government and industry regulations. In the end, destructive email retention policies are dangerous for today’s businesses."

The white paper discusses three arguments advocates use for practicing destructive retention policies:

• Change from the traditional retention policies – Change can be difficult, especially within organizations that have entrenched policies or limited technology capabilities
• Storage/Data Overload – Deleting emails can help reduce the management requirements and storage strain on IT departments
• Eliminate the potential threat of data loss/leakage – Data leaks can be very expensive and by deleting the emails, companies can reduce the threat.

While advocates of destructive retention policies may have security and storage concerns, email plays a central role in communications and the courts have deemed email to be business records. As a result, it must be preserved.

"While destructive retention policies certainly help to address the security/storage dilemma, the regularly scheduled destruction of emails creates a variety of new challenges for companies that could cost them more than money," added Gates. "Advanced archiving policies and technology, such as ArcMail Defender, can help to temper any arguments for destructive retention policies while helping to support compliance, litigation and productivity arguments for email archiving."

About ArcMail Technology
Founded in 2005, ArcMail Technology is a leading provider of simple, secure, and cost-effective email archiving and management solutions for companies of all sizes. The company’s ArcMail Defender appliance is a self contained, turn-key email archiving unit that is easy to buy, easy to install, and easy to use. The ArcMail Defender improves the end-user experience, reduces the load on IT resources, and safely and securely retains the business information contained in email. ArcMail’s scalable solutions are designed to meet the email archiving and management requirements of organizations both large and small. ArcMail has a global channel program to help deliver its products to organizations worldwide. ArcMail is headquartered in Shreveport, La., and has development groups in Washington and Arizona. For more information, visit www.arcmail.com.