First of all, you're talking about a doubly edged knife. You wouldn't "actually have" the received email either. Now imagine you're sexually harassed or blackma

First of all, you're talking about a doubly edged knife. You wouldn't "actually have" the received email either. Now imagine you're sexually harassed or blackmailed, but couldn't prove it, because your email vanishes just after you've read it. But more problematic is that you're forgetting about the analogue loophole. As long as I can take a photo of your crappy email, you only have the illusion of safety. Add to that the fact that currently there is no such thing as unbreakable DRM, mostly because it's a fundamentally flawed concept that can't work. DRM is security theater at best. > having such control over one's medical records would be desirable One thing that always bothered me is that programmers have the arrogance to think that technology can fix a broken society. Given that DRM is a broken concept, it wouldn't stop global adversaries like the NSA from mining your medical records. And then when your insurance company demands whatever records they want to do however they please, including selling that data to the highest bidder, threatening to reject your contract or claim, good luck explaining them about DRM and control.