Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Ok.....

1. I would rather be responsible for my own emails, I wouldn't trust NTL (or any other company for that matter) with their long term storage.
2. NTL provide a service and, despite what some people may say, I find them very good at what they do. Asking them to suddenly start providing new (and IMHO unneccessary) services would only complicate matters for them and probably lead to a degradation of the other services that they offer.
3. NTL's current pricing structure is based on the as is service that they provide. It does not allow for the mass long term storage of emails for all of their customers. If they were to suddenly have to (or decide to) do this then they would have to fund the extra storage and administration somehow. I would rather buy a few DVDs and back my emails up myself than have NTL charge me a few extra quid a month for the priviledge.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I do agree with much of what you say but not trusting ntl to store your emails (presumably if they didn't have the deletion policy) surely refelcts badly on them?

I too find them good at what they do. The core broadband provision is pretty damn good but I can't agree on the pricing being more than a fraction of 1 percent of the monthly subscription just to store a maximum of a few MB's of mail for each customer. "a few extra quid" seems high and I'd back down in a second if they decided to charge me for not deleting my emails even if my mailbox size wasn't over the high water mark.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I don't think it reflects badly on them at all, it's more a reflection of who I am. Some people might be more than happy to trust NTL to do this, and I would think no less of them, however I am not.

It's not just the storage though. They would need to implement extra mechanisms to cope with the change, new processes, all sorts of things would have to be amended behind the scenes (probably) - it's those sorts of things which will invariably lead to a price increase. Plus, they will (in effect) be providing an increased level of service - for which they will want to charge.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I might be missing something here, but since when did ISPs have an obligation to provide storage space for their customers. An ISPs server mailbox is litterally like the Royal Mail's sorting office. We don't ask Royal Mail to store our mail, indefinitely. Why should we expect an ISP to do that for us?

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Possibly something to do with this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4668903.stm
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Which isn't referring to indefinately (the thread just seems to have drifted that way somewhat.....).

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Of course they have no such obligation unless new legislation goes through. If they did then they'd (probably ;)) already be doing it. They're completely free to provide any level of service they want depending on what the market will take.

Permanent mail storage seems to be becoming the norm for the free mail providers. Clearly it's an issue for me that ntl don't currently do the same. Perhaps they will in the future. This poll should at least in part (if it gets enough responses) gauge how other customers feel.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Ntl offer DTV,Dial-up,Broadband,email and last but not least a phone service.Along with this they also offer 55MB of webspace.They offer this and only this.I think what I get for my money is reasonable for the price.I suggest that IF they are expected to go into the storage space arena then they should be offering it at a price like so many other services do.

I am quite happy to use Gmail's free 2 GB of storage for my more vital email.After all it means that I have an alternative email addy and an alternative storage area that is nothing to do with ntl.

After that I guess one just has to bite the bullet and use an alterative email service.Perhaps even one that has to be paid for.

Note to myself..I really must sort out an email account at my own website courtesy of I-Web. :erm:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Don't even get me started on the 55MB webspace limit - lol it's not even enough to host some holiday snapshots.

Presumably with the savings made storage wise since implementing spam filters ntl could imo easily allow customers to keep a limited amount of email on the mail servers indefinately. They could even use it as a marketing opportunity.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Well if they ever feel that way maybe...It's not something I'm up in arms about myself.I personally never have liked having a cluttered inbox anyway.My first ever email address was at Yahoo.I still have it but I always keep it clear.I can store stuff there as well if I feel like it.I just never have needed or wanted to store anything in my two NTL inboxes. :shrug:I even keep my inbox clear at Gmail and archive anything I want to keep.I certainly don't understand the passion for keeping every piece of email like some do. :erm:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I'm with you all the way. I'm not up in arms about it or about to start www.dontdeletemymail.co.uk or anything. Perhaps the only place we differ is that I tend to create mail folders (ebay,paypal,receipts,etc) and file stuff away that I think could be useful in the future in order to avoid a cluttered inbox.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

as far as email is concerned if its important as in I need to keep it eg. paypal receipt I will have it on my own hd not stored online, that goes for hotmail and all other imap type email services. When using pop mail I always download and delete of server.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

It's because it's important that I like to keep a copy in several places.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Nice words of wisdom :tu:

I knew you would make a good mod :)

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Already coverred this bit above. In short nobody is claiming they have this obligation.I don't think the analogy holds but even if it did then there's no reason why it has to remain etched in stone.

As for why we should expect an ISP not to delete mail well it's for all the reasons outlined above but here again:-

1. Other email providers are doing it.
2. It's useful to have remote backups. Storing important mail in a mailbox seems sensible to me.
3. It could give a competitive advantage.
4. It has negligible cost attached to it compared to the incoming revenue stream and due to the savings made in deflecting/filtering spam plus the ever decreasing cost of storage.
5. It's not theirs to delete in the first place. I'm sure there was some law passed that grants emails the same status as personal correspondence with regard to ownership.

I'm just about done now. Will probably raise it again in another year or so :)

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

There's an enormous amount of storage devoted to storing email already, even with the current restrictions (double figures TB).

Just to point out you agree by using the servers that ntl can delete this stuff, so nothing illegal there.

It's not going to be any kind of revenue stream at all, there's no real value add there and how many people do you know who chose ISPs based on how long they can stash mail for? I don't think a Gmail ISP will collect tons of users based purely on the fact they offer a lot of email storage.

Finally, and perhaps more relevantly this whole thing is pathetic, there's more ways than you could shake a stick at to cover tracks using email, and through the ready availability of strong encryption it's completely pointless storing the actual messages themselves.

Anyone with half a brain who really wants to could hide the IP address they mail from, use an untraceable email address, sending a message encoded so strongly it would take millions of computers decades to break to another completely anonymous email address where it's picked up again by a masked IP address.

To date email is still not run with security in any sense in mind. Until protocols change this will remain the case.