Discussion on:

Does 'Delete forever' in Gmail really mean it?

I HAD AN EXPERIENCE THAT THE FBI CAME TO HY HOME AND CONFISCATED MY COMPUTER. I HAD DELETED A FEW INAPPROPRIATE E MAILS. I WAS LABORING THAT IF I DELETED CERTAIN INFORMATION IT WAS GONE. THE FBI PUT A DISK IN MY CPU AND LO AND BEHOLD UP POPPED THE INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL I HAD DELETED. SO DELETED DOES NOT MEAN SQUAT.
DELETED DOES NOT MEAN IT IS GONE. BIG BROTHER CAN PULL IT UP REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. YOU CAN GET BURNT BY BIG BROTHER. DO YOU KNOW OF A METHOD WE CAN USE TO TOTALLY PROTECT OURSELVES FROM BIG BROTHER (FBI). IF WE CANNOT PROTECT OURSELVES WE SHOULD BE ADVISED OF THAT FACT OFFICIALLY. a METHOD SHOULD BE FURNISHED TO US TO PREVENT NO-NO'S FROM GETTING IN. PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW I CAN PROTECT MYSELF FROM BEING BURNT FROM HIGHER AUTHORITY......TOM TEA@NCTV.COM

dont look at kiddie porn

My gmail was hacked and password changed. Gmail just restored my access to it. You can literally see the IP address in the recent details of the person who hacked it. In any case, they deleted all of my mail. How can I get my entire mailbox back? Or is that impossible. I've been all through the web trying to find an answer. Please help!

It would be good to get clear technical specifications from google on what 'delete forever' does mean, and I will be following your discovery closely. I would like to see that 'delete forever' means that no part of the email (including associated metadata) can be retrieved from any system or storage device. It should mean that no trace of the email having ever existed could be recovered by any means. Government agencies that dispose (destroy) digital information legitimately under legislated and approved disposal authorities need to destroy the email, but are required to keep the associated metadata as part of the audit trail to show the record existed, and when and what authority the public record was destroyed under. However, in the case of gmail and other email account providers, I would expect as a consumer that the email and all associated metadata was unrecoverable by any means for now and in the future.

In the working world, the feds require companies to keep archived backup copies of emails for 6 (or is it 7) years. I worked for a regional school district that provided this as a service to 40+ local school districts, including our own. This was a security requirement passed sometime after 9/11 and this has been in effect for the last few years. I'm not sure whether ISPs like Google do this, but if a school district uses gmail, which many do, they have this requirement and there has to be a way to archive everything.

Clearly, delete forever has no meaning if you work for an employer who follows the law. I'm also not sure what the business size is (# of employees) to make this legal requirement kick in, but it's a very real part of modern life. That's why so many employers have written policies telling employees not to use corporate email for anything personal or risque.

The chances are, that the government wants access to that data, and for a long time to come. The emails you send, the word and speech patterns you use are all valuable and useful to others, so why would you assume they delete it? In fact, deleting your message would likely raise a flag and cause your account to be monitored all that more closely. Police know to look out for people who drive too well, or never seem to do anything wrong, it is not normal.

It costs millions of dollars a month to maintain those servers and to manage the data flow. Where and how do they, or could they, make their money? Follow the money; read what they are legally required to do; go from there...

they do that all the time they sell it make money give you more space.what?

The United States Government agencies are known to have built huge storage data centers and are in the process of building even bigger ones to store vast amounts of domestic surveillance data intercepted from their citizens activities. So even if you tell Gmail to "Delete Forever", rest assured your government keeps a copy "for your safety and protection".

Google (and probably others) sifts through every e-mail to extract data used for marketing. They won't say how much of those e-mails is extracted, so it is possible that they could extract everything! All they need is massive cloud storage (which they already have) to store ALL e-mail in their system, in the hopes that future needs can be met. What is NOT valuable to them today may be extremely valuable tomorrow.

they sit trough every email because i was getting a email from my brother and it was only a mb and it took them 20 seconds for it to be in my inbox so i think it was coppied to all servers and a goverments as well

No to worry, as the headline suggests, nothing last forever. Why sweat the small stuff. It doesn't matter, unless you want to be immortal and that just doesn't happen, no matter how long any"body" tries. Not even manmade Gods last forever -- a few thousand years at best, but usually just a few centuries.
Get over yourselves people, nothing last very long, especially blood, bones, and demented brains.