Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Cybersecurity
    • Cybersecurity
    • Database
    • IT Management
    • Storage

    Businesses Generally Ignoring E-Discovery Rules

    Written by

    Chris Preimesberger
    Published December 17, 2007
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

      A year and 16 days after the institution of the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Dec. 1, 2006, about two-thirds of U.S. businesses remain unprepared to meet strict court requirements for the discovery and handling of electronic evidence, according to a data storage researcher.

      The new regulations, ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2006, mandate that businesses must be able to quickly produce such data—including e-mail, digital word documents, images and digital audio and video—when required by litigation in a federal court.

      To this end, a relatively new IT sector built around efficient storage and access to legacy business data has been developing, but apparently the genre still has plenty of space to grow. At the one-year milestone, it doesn’t appear as if many potential customers are paying attention—or, if they are aware of the rules, are simply ignoring them.

      “The survey reveals serious legal issues for organizations that are either ignoring the new federal mandates for compliance and e-discovery or are clearly not well educated on how to meet the technical requirements,” said IT researcher Michael Osterman of Osterman Research, in Black Diamond, Wash.

      Many recent court cases have shown that companies are expected to show a clear retention policy, Osterman said.

      “I don’t think it’s difficult to understand the [FRCP] rules,” Osterman told eWEEK. “Or that business owners don’t know about them. I just think that it sometimes takes ‘headline shock’ to make people move on some things—especially when we’re talking about ‘potential’ liabilities.

      “In other words, if it hasn’t happened to them yet, it hasn’t happened.”

      Osterman, a veteran, well-respected storage and data center researcher, said that it often takes bad news to happen to another company before a business owner gets serious about the potential problems he or she could face in litigation.

      “Let’s face it: Unless some company gets hit by a $15 million judgment, it is difficult for an IT manager or a CIO to go to his board and say, ‘We might be liable under the new laws for not keeping all our e-mails and word docs. The ‘potential’ problems often don’t get addressed,” Osterman said.

      Read here about an online resource center that is aiding e-discovery.

      Osterman told of a company he knows in the United Kingdom—one of the larger employers in that nation—that had a sudden change of mind on this issue.

      “The CIO had gone to his board in April 2005 with a 265-thousand-pound purchase order request for e-discovery and archiving software and services. He was turned down. In September of that same year, one of the company’s competitors was hit by a large court judgment.

      “Three days later, the first company’s board approved the CIO’s original request,” Osterman said.

      Many companies are still unclear on the concept of e-discovery in general, Osterman said.

      “There really is no consensus yet on whether a company should keep all its e-mail and other docs, or whether a company should keep a finite number of years’ worth of data, or whether it should keep more than 30 days’ worth of data,” Osterman said. “As long as a company can prove it has predictable methods of storing or not storing data, it can show the court that it has some sort of policy in place.”

      The uncertainty is about the nature of the policies, which can be different according to each company. Only 47 percent of companies have some kind of e-mail retention policy in place, Osterman said.

      Some of the other findings from Osterman include:

      • 53 percent of companies lack a policy to govern e-mail retention and deletion.
      • 67 percent of companies allow individual end users to determine how long messages are kept by the company.
      • 66 percent of companies do not have the e-mail archiving technology required to manage e-mail retention, litigation holds and e-discovery.

      If they are taken to court, these companies would likely be required to search backup tapes, desktop files and legacy systems to find information that was deleted in the absence of a good-faith retention policy, Osterman said. Manual e-discovery searches can be costly.

      In addition, companies without an e-discovery policy risk being sanctioned for the illegal destruction of evidence, including courtroom penalties that can cost a company an important legal case on process grounds, Osterman said.

      The survey was conducted among 111 companies in fall of 2007 by Osterman Research for MessageOne, based in Austin, Texas.

      Check out eWEEK.com’s Storage Center for the latest news, reviews and analysis on enterprise and small business storage hardware and software.

      Chris Preimesberger
      Chris Preimesberger
      https://www.eweek.com/author/cpreimesberger/
      Chris J. Preimesberger is Editor Emeritus of eWEEK. In his 16 years and more than 5,000 articles at eWEEK, he distinguished himself in reporting and analysis of the business use of new-gen IT in a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, data center systems, storage, edge systems, security and others. In February 2017 and September 2018, Chris was named among the 250 most influential business journalists in the world (https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-250-business-journalists/) by Richtopia, a UK research firm that used analytics to compile the ranking. He has won several national and regional awards for his work, including a 2011 Folio Award for a profile (https://www.eweek.com/cloud/marc-benioff-trend-seer-and-business-socialist/) of Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff--the only time he has entered the competition. Previously, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. He has been a stringer for the Associated Press since 1983 and resides in Silicon Valley.
      Linkedin Twitter

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Artificial Intelligence

      9 Best AI 3D Generators You Need...

      Sam Rinko - June 25, 2024 0
      AI 3D Generators are powerful tools for many different industries. Discover the best AI 3D Generators, and learn which is best for your specific use case.
      Read more
      Cloud

      RingCentral Expands Its Collaboration Platform

      Zeus Kerravala - November 22, 2023 0
      RingCentral adds AI-enabled contact center and hybrid event products to its suite of collaboration services.
      Read more
      Artificial Intelligence

      8 Best AI Data Analytics Software &...

      Aminu Abdullahi - January 18, 2024 0
      Learn the top AI data analytics software to use. Compare AI data analytics solutions & features to make the best choice for your business.
      Read more
      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Video

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2024 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×