Email Archive Lost Permanently For 14,000 Users

In the ultimate "Death By Email", Charter Communications accidentally wiped out all of the email data for 14,000 email users while doing "routine maintenance" on Monday.  If you are one of the 2.6-million customers in 29 states who use Charter, you may want to check your account.  If you are one of the affected people, the company said it sent an email to let you know.  (Ironic, isn't it?)

“We ordinarily go through and delete inactive accounts. In doing that, we erroneously erased those accounts,” said Anita Lamont, a Charter Communications spokeswoman.

Unfortunately, the affected content cannot be recovered, the email to customers said. (Charlotte Citizen-Times)  Charter gave a $50 credit to each affected person as an apology.

Earlier, this blog reported that some Gmail users reported losing all of their data from Google.  It would seem that if you use web mail of any kind, it would make sense to download your messages periodically.  It would be good to have a back-up.