Home Secretary Urges Email Data Retention

[obvious]

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

any emails (whether read or unread) kept on our servers will automatically be deleted after 90 days.

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?

[grandmaster]

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

[obvious]

Originally Posted by grandmaster

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

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?

[obvious]

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

[Graham]

Originally Posted by obvious

It seemed absurd that we only get to keep 90 days (although for me it seems more like 30 days) of emails. [...]
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.

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.

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 ******** ?

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".

Originally Posted by obvious

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.

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.

[obvious]

Originally Posted by Paul M

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.

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

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?

[Chris W]

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...

[obvious]

Originally Posted by Chris W

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...

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

[Millay]

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.

Originally Posted by obvious

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

What extra hoop would that be then ?

Originally Posted by obvious

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?

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.

[obvious]

Originally Posted by Millay

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.

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".
__________________

Originally Posted by Paul M

What extra hoop would that be then ?

1. Making a backup
2. Storing it somewhere
3. Remembering where it is.
4. Retrieving it.
5. Possibly paying for it.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by obvious

I was generalising. Please don't be so sensitive.

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.

1. Making a backup
2. Storing it somewhere
3. Remembering where it is.
4. Retrieving it.
5. Possibly paying for it.

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.

Originally Posted by obvious

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

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?

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.

[obvious]

Originally Posted by Paul M

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.

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!

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.

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.
__________________

Originally Posted by homealone

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.

I'd recommend that solution as well. It just strikes me as poor service that ntl arbitrarily delete customer's personal data.