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From one point of view, the history of computing has been one of trying to maintain data integrity, which in turn makes it harder and harder to permanently dele

• saidajigumi 12y ago
  And not just data integrity, but capacity and culture work against "digital forgetting" as well. Capacity (re: cost per unit) has been growing (much) faster than our ability to generate correspondence. Now, the new default is to just go with the flow of our digital memory. Likewise, IT organizations have built in policies and practices around backing up and preserving data. New effort and planning around comprehensive deletion policies would seem to be the next frontier, both at the IT and individual levels. Deletion policies exist now, but in my experience these are often half-hearted compared to retention policies. Even (especially?) for individuals in companies, email and the like become a memory prosthetic. You don't need to make external notes, because you can always go back to email. Speaking personally, I know of many, many occasions where I've had to refer back to communications at least two months old. At some organizations, trolling the last year's email has been practically obligatory when slogging through annual reviews.