Frankly, isn’t this old advice? It’s been around ever since there was a huge debate over whether companies have the right to monitor their employees e-mail and web surfing access. Regardless of whether it’s used at work or not, it can be potentially be used for legal proceedings – just take the Rep. Foley scandal…all the files on computers and e-mails are being saved to be used again the former congressman.
E-mailing is a very useful tool and has rapidly replaced the traditional pen and pencil method of communication. However, it seems to be taken very freely and many seem to think that they can hide their communique deceptively without being caught. As opposed to writing on paper, an e-mail cannot be truly deleted — computer forensic scientists have methods of retrieving those “lost” e-mails, and chances are that your hosting providers have saved them on their servers.
Just goes to show you that whatever you write down can always come back to bite you on your butt if you’re not careful. Write it only if you mean it.
