As of today, there are new rules in effect governing storage of electronic data for companies doing business in the United States. Though the title of this article is a bit misleading, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061201/ap_on_hi_te/storing_e_mails" source="Yahoo">New rules compel firms to track e-mails</a>, it's more or less true. More accurately, companies will have to keep track of every scrap of digital detritus that may be needed in possible future lawsuits. <bq>The rules, approved by the Supreme Court in April, require companies and other entities involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of the discovery process, when evidence is shared by both sides before a trial.</bq> That is, companies have to spend money putting systems into place to maintain data that will only be needed in case there's ever a lawsuit against them. Already, there are complaints that precious attorney time is spent sifting through emails about <iq>office birthday parties in the pantry</iq>. Somehow, the innovators behind this law see a way out of this by accumulating <i>more</i> data, assuming that this regulation will force companies to make their data more organized and searchable. Fat chance; who the hell's going to invest heavily in maintaining a system that makes it easier for you to get sued? <bq>Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing "virtual shredding" once a lawsuit has been filed</bq> Thus the title of this article: storage solutions companies must be simply slavering at this news. Since it's already gone to the Supreme Court, it's a done deal and companies have no choice but to fall in line, but it doesn't seem that they thought it through that well. The problem of data these days is that there's just too bloody much of it; there's a lot of noise to signal and it's getter harder and harder to categorize it correctly so that you can find the signal you were looking for before you go bankrupt. How exactly does this get better by demanding that we keep every last bit of every version of every document, message or communiqué produced by a company? This idea likely sprung from the same mind that envisioned "Total Information Awareness", the program that sought to bind all data from all intelligence services together into a national database (I'm looking at you, Dick Perle). It worked like a charm, of course, and has helped convict zero terrorists so far ... but any day now, of course, it'll turn right around. Even on the smaller level of a single company embroiled in a lawsuit of one kind or another, the sheer amount of useless data is staggering; lawyers doing discovery have as much chance of finding anything salient as finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. There are other open questions about a company's data obligations: <ol> What are the guidelines for searchability? How organized must the data be? Is the company really obligated to keep even sensitive data, which costs much more to store and protect, regardless of whether that data could ever be required? Which formats are required/supported? Is there <i>really</i> no expiration date past which records are no longer required to be kept? </ol> Companies are disorganized enough as it is---spending incredible amounts on IT infrastructure---how exactly is this going to work? Or is it like parking fines? The government makes ridiculous rules that are bound to be broken simply in order to collect fines when companies fail to comply with electronic discovery rules. In the end, it comes down to how much potential future fines cost (amortized over expected number of years between lawsuits) versus how much it costs to store the extra data over those same years. Either way, the costs could be astronomical, but that's probably part of the point. Since the US is now almost pure service industry, it's a good way to goose the economy a bit by making laws that force one part of the economy to provide work for another part. Net national earnings don't change as money transfers internally, but at least the money's moving and the economy <i>looks</i> healthier.