Because in many jurisdictions it is required by law.
(edit) For publicly traded companies that is.
email is fake. It can be faked. It can be forged. It isn't a legal record, but people treat it that way.
As for the other problems, they have a tried and true solution. You take the author of the putative email, sit them down in the witness box, and ask them point blank if they wrote said email. If they admit to it, it is now perfectly good solid legal evidence. If they say they did not, it now becomes a question about whether the witness is committing perjury. And given the email trail, and given what other witnesses have said, the truth does tend to out.
So, imperfections notwithstanding, every email you write could wind up in court. Furthermore, imperfections still notwithstanding, an email trail can easily become very valuable evidence. Particularly in civil trials where the standard of evidence is much lower.
What is this "legal record"?
Email can be a business record. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_record
Business records may be used as evidence in legal proceedings. Like all evidence, BRs may be faked/forged. So what?
No they don't.
It's evidence and is treated as such, including all the proper oversight regarding chain of custody and regulatory capture/compliance. All evidence can be faked or forged, like testimony, physical evidence, or even legal "records" (what is that supposed to even mean, anyway? Did you know contracts are also evidence? And that they can be forged?)
That's why we have judges, juries and all sorts of messy legal constructs like "truth" and "perjury" and "oath".
None of this stuff is deterministic in the real world and it's a lot more complicated than some guy with a beard producing e-mails from a server in the closet.
If instead you think it's more important to actually try fixing problems, to shine light on poor decisions, to give a voice to reason and sanity, to stand in the way of negligence and malfeasance before it happens, then by all means ignore this article's "advice" as much as possible.
"I'm uncomfortable using the very sensitive and highly confidential information in this manner, and therefore refuse to do so." That's probably incriminating for the company, but if they're asking you to break the law or be unethical you need to demonstrate your disagreement lest you be brought down with them.
Plus, that does what InclinedPlane says about actually trying to fix problems in advance.
I can't return the prototype. We're getting too many pageviews. Sorry for damaging your business. Can the CEO or legal acknowledge it's yours?
Regards, Eoin Murphy
typing
Retards, Eoin Murphy
Insulting, simple to do (g-t keys right next to each other) and the spell checker wouldn't catch it.
As regards the danger words; if you find that your're typing a lot of them, it may be a good idea to reconsider your career choices.
