RMurphy

That had to be painful. No local backups of the archive, I take it.

The email servers have backups; the hosts just don't ever want to pull them for an individual client's request if they can avoid it. It sets a precedent if they do. However, if they had an email server failure they would be able to rebuild the server and restore all of the mail on it. Depending on how old the email was that you deleted, it's entirely possible they had copies of received mail still. But that totally depends on the age of the email in question.

Morris

RMurphy, you may be right, even though I instructed my host not to keep emails once they were downloaded. But in 12 years I have never had my address book used by anyone but me, and I see yahoo and google users being used almost on a weekly basis. I don't want my clients getting an email for Viagra from "me". So far, so good.

A 2

This is a very interesting thread.

Coming of age around the time the Internet switched over from unix based CLI to a browser interface, I belong to the generation that seems to have embraced this invasion. A lot of the comments on here including the original post is definitely making me think back over how much things have changed since I started researching online for academic papers in 1995. At first it was sheer joy knowing I did not have to laboriously pore through multiple books and journals for info, and fast forward to today where even a day in a place without internet access causes withdrawal symptoms as I can't check in on work or connect with family/friends. Used to be a time I hand wrote letters, now it is a forgotten art.

Again this is a great thread. Can always count on Vintage for thought provoking discussion.