[Ignition]

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.