Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

A year or more ago I was a bit of a thorn in ntl's side because I didn't agree with their policy of deleting customer's email on a regular basis.

It seemed absurd that we only get to keep 90 days (although for me it seems more like 30 days) of emails. Here's a quote from the user policy I argued that it's useful to be able to store internet shopping receipts / passwords (at your own risk) or basically anything that you'd like to keep a record of by creating a folder "saved items" in your ntlworld email account.

Now the Home Secretary is urging ISP's to retain email data for 6 months in order to track terrorists.

Well hey, ntl, perhaps if you're going to store the data anyway you can at least let us have access to our own emails (you bunch of cheap ******** ;)?

Further, I'd like to see ntl having a mailbox size limit but no time limits at all.

What do you think?

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

i would'nt say they were cheap...

Retaining email requires a lot of server space..
plus the fact it would'nt be usefull email that people would keep, it would be crap that they could'nt be bothered deleting.

If you want lots of space get a gmail account and forward your ntl mail there

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

They already have mailbox size limits so I dont see the server space issue especially with the cost of storage being so incredibly low given that we're talking about easily compressible text on the whole. If I were to store a copy of war and peace online then I'm sure it would cost less than £0.01 of my monthly subscription.

How people tidy the crap out of their email accounts should be up to them, not ntl IMO. In any case there would always be the option of creating a 'saved mail' folder and putting anything you'd like stored in there.

ntl want us to get gmail (and I have) so they can minimise the (miniscule) cost of providing their own storage.

When will they realise that value added services such as email can be a big selling point?

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Well early indications are that no-one wants to keep product registrations, receipts, passwords, photo's, documents or ebay/paypal details stored in their mailbox and happiness seems to be defined as knowing that you've always got to make a backup somewhere else.

Oh well :shrug:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I don't see what's absurd about it.

If you want to keep copies of anything, use your own storage space for them or (better still) print them out so you have a hard copy that's won't be lost if eg you have a disk crash.

Well firstly, supposedly it's only e-mail "header" data that is stored (ie who wrote to whom) not the actual contents of the mail, however, secondly I don't think that such an obligation should be placed on ISPs because not only will it increase costs but also because under the European Convention on Human Rights, any such data kept should be only what is "necessary and proportionate" not a catch-all "just in case".

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Correct, I can't think why on earth I would keep my e-mails on ntl's servers. I load them into Outlook. My pc gets backed up regularly anyway.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Agreed, there's nothing like having an extra hoop to jump through to in order to achieve something. :rolleyes: ;)

1. Remote storage is a good idea in case your PC/Study/House decides to explode.
2. Oops I just re-installed windows now where did I put that backup?

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Somehow i can't imagine that terrorists are going to keep their emails planning attacks on their isp's servers anyway... i give them slightly more credit than that, so really i don't see that the Home Secretary's urgings would make any difference anyway...

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Fair point. It was just the BBC news item that made me think of ntl's personal data destruction policy.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I think the sotring of emails the home secratery is talking about is for deleted sent/received anything that passes through theserver, wheaver you keep it on the server or not, this is common practice in companies and should be followed by ISP's the emails dont have to be stored in a public manner allowing for the ISP to use heavy compression and offline storage etc...

Forgive me if i am wrong but the NTL World email service is primeraly an POP service designed to integrate with Outlook or some other email client. meaning that it is npot up to them to keep data on there servers for long lengths of time.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

What extra hoop would that be then ?

1. What makes you think I don't keep remote backups of important stuff ?

2. I don't really take kindly to insults inferring I would be so stupid as to not know where my backups are, you are walking a thin line atm. :dozey:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

NTL allow POP, IMAP(I think) and HTTP access to the mailservers. Outlook allows customers to "Leave a copy of the messages on the server".
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1. Making a backup
2. Storing it somewhere
3. Remembering where it is.
4. Retrieving it.
5. Possibly paying for it.


1. I'm sure you do. You seem to be in favour of them but just opposed to them being stored on ntl's mailservers for soem reason.

2. I was generalising. People lose things. It wasn't directed at you. Please don't be so sensitive.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Then I suggest you don't quote people if you are going to "generalise", since it makes your replies appear to be directed at the person you are quoting.

Since I do all of these anyway - to backup all important files on my machine (as should everyone really) - then there are no extra hoops just for e-mail. :cool:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I find the easiest way is to set your ntl addy to forward to Gmail - the search & indexing facilities in Gmail make it a doddle to find archived mail.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Well I kind of had to quote you to answer your questions. I'm sorry if you find it offensive that I suggest people sometimes misplace things but it in no way should have been interpreted as an insult or a slight on your intelligence!

Well that's great for you but why is it heresy to ask ntl to store saved emails? I'm not trying to start a fight here, just raising a simple question.
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I'd recommend that solution as well. It just strikes me as poor service that ntl arbitrarily delete customer's personal data.

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.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Yes, the whole 'terrorist tracking' thing is a bit ridiculous.

On the legal side, I can't find any reference after a quick search so you're probably right there as well.

Unhappy customers do cite email and other secondary services as areas that could do with improvement.

As to the amount of storage I'll assume we're talking <20TB which would fit on 40 hard drives (yes I guess ntl wont be using 500GB SATA drives) which is a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the millions coming in each month.

I was delighted with the recent increase in speeds but don't see anything wrong in wishing that ntl wouldn't delete ... yada yada yada.

:)

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

This is funny. If ntl are bringing in £30mill ion a month in subscriptions then a £30,000 mail server upgrade would be 1/1000th of 1 months income.

I stand by my first post - "Cheap ********"

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I think obvious might be onto a good thing. If more terrorists can be encouraged to use NTL for their email, there would be a lot less bombings. "Do you believe the infidels should die? Save 10% on broadband." I missed my calling - should have gone into marketing.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Maybe the terrorists should have NTL email accounts and new access. That way, we could guarantee they would never be able to communicate :D

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

I'm just thinking of the spam influx on the system, bear in mind that what the home sec is suggesting is hidden retention, emails that we delete would be retained also for future reference or the concept is rendered invalid.... sheesh, the storage requirement would be phenomenal and would grow at an almost exponential rate.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

BTW, has anyone else got more than 30days retention on the ntl mailservers at the moment?

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Not sure, mine are deleted from the servers as I download them.

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

:p:

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

Sorry, couldn't resist :D

Re: Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention
 

The oldest email in my account is from the 5th of April.