When E-Mail Bites Back

If you're bothered by the thought that a computer somewhere is sifting through your messages to your wife in search of lascivious phrasing, well, get used to it; as e-mail extends its ubiquitous reach, so will the technology to monitor and control it, at least in the office. And at Microsoft, 2 million e-mails a day still fly among the 28,000 employees, any one of whom can sit down at his terminal and tell Gates what he ought to be doing. ""It's the only way we communicate with one another,'' says Bob Herbold, Microsoft's chief operating officer. ""I don't get any paper mail. None. Except from a lawyer occasionally.''

Sending an e-mail to another person creates multiple copies in places you might never imagine. Deleting it from your mailbox doesn't mean it's gone. Here's what happens:

Sender: When you send an e-mail it gets transmitted to a central server.

Server: Messages are stored here. A second computer may keep duplicates, in case the main server crashes. For extra safety, additional copies can be saved on magnetic tape.

Storage: Companies archive anywhere from a few weeks'--to years'--worth of back mail.