The debate over treating hyperlinked files as modern attachments is reignited (and it feels so good). 😉 But what should we call those files linked from messages?

The issue of treating hyperlinked files as modern attachments has been discussed by me in previous posts here, here, here, here, here, here and my latest post here. I received tons of feedback on the topic, with at least 72 comments on my first LinkedIn post about it so far (some of which were mine, of course) and received several emails as well with thoughts and opinions. Last week’s post generated a whole new round of comments and debate on LinkedIn here.

And we’re seeing others raise considerations in our industry too. Craig Ball published his latest post in his excellent Ball in Your Court blog on Friday titled What’s All the Fuss About Linked Attachments? (available here). In it, Craig makes his case for calling them “attachments”, gives us a much-needed history lesson as to why this has become an issue and discusses a very important consideration in the mix – the linked files aren’t searched because they aren’t collected with the emails which are then indexed. In many cases, that’s probably true and it’s not a good thing.

My position (as stated in assumption #4 here) is that hyperlinked files should still be produced if they are deemed to be responsive (irrespective of their link/attachment status). In other words, producing parties should still be searching and collecting from their cloud repositories. Whether it should be paired up with the message is a matter of debate, but at least we should be able to agree that the file should be produced if it’s responsive to the searches. Right?

Craig also goes on to discuss the burden associated with producing the files as attachments, states that “the biggest platforms like Microsoft and Google offer ‘pretty good’ mechanisms to deal with linked attachments” and that “these tools aren’t perfect; but they exist, and perfect is not the standard, just as pretending there are no solutions and doing nothing is not the standard.” Couldn’t agree more, though several respondents to my last LinkedIn message cited some of the difficulties, and I can certainly agree that they seem formidable. I’m hoping to drill down into some specifics in upcoming posts.

Speaking of specifics, Rachi Messing raised a question earlier today in his LinkedIn post, where he asks the versioning question – “what VERSION is the correct one to collect and search”?

“Is it:

1. The version that existed at the time the email was sent (similar to a point in time capture of a file that is attached to an email the traditional way)
2. The version that was seen the first time the recipient opened it (which may lead to multiple versions required based on the exact timing of multiple recipients opening at varying times)
3. The version that exists the final time a recipient opened it
4. The most recent version in existence”

Real…good…question. While I’m not sure what the right answer is, I don’t think it should be “none of the above”. Once again, doing nothing is not the standard.

I’m going to conclude this post by asking a much more basic question: what should we call those files linked from messages? “Hyperlinked (or linked) files”? “Hyperlinked (or linked) attachments”? “Cloud attachments?” (which is what Microsoft calls them) Or “Modern attachments”?

I’ve created a LinkedIn poll for people to weigh in on the results and it will be open for the next two weeks. LinkedIn only gives four max choices, so I’m treating “hyperlinked” and “linked” as interchangeable in this exercise.

Let’s see what happens! Though I don’t expect anywhere near a consensus. Even if we’re close, I don’t expect the debate to end. Alicia Hawley just conducted another poll on how we should spell our discipline, and “eDiscovery” won handily with 83% of the vote (e-Discovery and e-discovery only combined for 14% total). Still, there are people who insist it should be “e-Discovery” or “e-discovery”. eDiscovery people are stubborn. 🙂

So, what do you think? What should we call those files linked from messages? Comment here if you want, but also go to the poll and put your vote in there! And please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “email AND hyperlinks”.

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