Recap and IM Action Plan

1. Whether your business is regulated or not, IM that is used for business purposes generates information with business and legal significance. Your organization must apply rules for identifying, retaining, and managing information and business records.

2. Some regulators, such as the NASD, SEC, and NYSE require instant messages to be managed with the same care as e-mail messages and paper documents. Since retention rules depend on technology—that is, your ability to retain messages at the desktop or the server—this must be a feature of the IM system you deploy.

Whether you have an enterprise IM system or install a gateway product to support employee use of personal IM tools, be sure your system allows for the monitoring, purging, retention, and archiving of IM in compliance with regulatory requirements.