It's required when financial transactions are involved, and firms were
very eager in that sector to log everything.
Brokerage houses on Wall Street not only archive all email, but now use
3rd party, offsite proxies to log all Instant Message conversations.
The companies need a record of all the transaction requests -- as
people are increasingly doing so over IM. I think they have to hold
onto them for a minimum for 4 years...
And google says that its 3:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111234,00.asp
> On Mar 31, 2004, at 06:43, Steve Thomas wrote:
>> In some types of businesses (the legal world is one, I believe), the
>> law requires that the company retain a copy of certain types of
>> communications[1]. It may *seem* invasive and paranoid, but there
>> could be legitimate reasons a company would need to do this.
>>
>> [1] In the U.S. I have no idea of what is or isn't required elsewhere.
>
> This is simply not true, at least as far as e-mail is concerned.
>
> However, US law does require that, in the event that you are served
> with a subpoena, you hand over all requested materials in existence at
> that point, and that you not make any attempts to destroy it.
