Reading your Email

Since 1986 I have been in the business of reading people's email.

I personally don't sit at a computer and read it, but I have built businesses and solutions around the concept of reading email for corporations. The reason has been to keep the bad stuff from getting in and to keep the good stuff from getting out.

But this latest issue with Sarah Palin's yahoo email account being hijacked and then published is something that completely crosses the line.

This is not free information for public consumption. This is left of someone's personal property, even if it is digital property. And that property is being used for financial gain.

That is like someone breaking into your house and stealing something that they then sell on ebay and everyone knows it was stolen.

I am not so naive to believe that the email information can be retracted. Once on the Internet always on the Internet.

Which brings up a funny incident the other day. I heard about an attorney who has a client in the email security business. He didn't quite know how the whole Google thing works, wanted someone to call Google and have them get rid of some content that was showing up in the search engines. He thought you can just call Google and they will take it off their 'website'. DOH! Welcome to the Internet age.

I created a saying for GWAVA's archiving product, Retain.

"Life is short, Email is forever."

The one lesson we learn from this is to never put something in email that you wouldn't want the entire world to know about. You might not care today but who knows what will happen in the future.