Emerging Communications, Archiving and eDiscovery

By Stephanie Jordan
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With the escalation of social technology adoption, the question has to be asked: Is it discoverable? “In regulated industries, such as financial services, they do not care if you are using email, instant messaging, Twitter or a blog. To them electronic communication is electronic communication,” states Stephen Marsh, CEO and founder of Smarsh. “The regulatory bodies do not tolerate the response that Twitter is a new technology. If you cannot archive it, and make it compliant, then you cannot use it. If you are going to use it, you have to archive it and you have to supervise it.”

A Hot Topic

Outside of the regulated industries, the question of whether or not social media is discoverable is a hot topic right now. At a recent IDC conference, Marsh reports that the position taken was if it contained business communications, regardless of the medium, it is a record and therefore not only does it need to be retained, you want to retain it. “The fact that it is on a new type of social media is really irrelevant,” says Marsh. “Is social media being subpoenaed now? Maybe, maybe not, but in the future it will be.”

Marsh also believes that there is an opportunity to monitor what employees are saying, out in public, about employers. “By monitoring their account, which is very different than the one to one communication of email, you have an opportunity that companies have not had in the past. It is very interesting and I think we are just beginning to see what this will ultimately look like a few years from now.”

Published November 24, 2009