When you shred a document, it is gone for good. Electronic documents are another story. This is because of the way they are stored on your computer. When you delete a file, you are actually just removing a pointer the computer uses to find the file on your hard drive. The data still exists until it gets overwritten by another file. That is why firms like Ontrack Data International are doing a booming business of recovering deleted files from computers. Ontrack estimates that 93% of all business communication in America is electronic, through email, text files, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, etc.