The Big Business in Mining E-Archives

Fascinating (if thoroughly discomfiting) story here on the rapidly growing paralegal business of mining company’s e-archives for litigation. Here are some of the stats that got my attention:

• $2-billion market, growing 35% a year
• Forensics company Kroll Ontrack has had its archives go from a half-petabyte to two petabytes in 18 months
• One vendor, Fios, had 38 employees in 2003, and has 120 today
• And the kicker … 90% of U.S. companies are engaged in some kind of litigation

Business opportunities aside, the moral in all of this is the same as usual: Put nothing in email or instant messaging that you wouldn’t want to have read in the town square.

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