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Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

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Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#21
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only evil to a capitalist is loss of capital. The "don't be evil" motto still applies. Just not the way that you're accustomed to reading it.

I'm surprised you're getting downvoted given the amount of snark in other comments. Or is the directness the part we're not supposed to be saying out loud?

[flagged]

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#22
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only evil to a capitalist is loss of capital. The "don't be evil" motto still applies. Just not the way that you're accustomed to reading it.

I'm surprised you're getting downvoted given the amount of snark in other comments. Or is the directness the part we're not supposed to be saying out loud?

You can criticize a person, you can criticize a company, but criticizing capitalism itself is never popular here. I've been called a communist for literally quoting Adam Smith.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#23

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/512/1/united-s... > The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required Google to suspend its auto-delete practices in mid-2019, when the company reasonably anticipated this litigation. Google did not. Instead, as described above, Google abdicated its burden to individual custodians to preserve potentially relevant chats. Few, if any, document custodians did so. That is, few cu…

This is particularly funny because one way Google scams people to get them to buy more storage space is by moving deleted drive/Gmail items to the Drive Trash instead of deleting them. So when you try to clear space by deleting emails etc., it doesn't seem to help.

Furthermore, even if you clear your Trash, it can take hours to take effect (for Some Reason), making it seem like you need to just give up and buy more storage.

Apparently Google execs don't have the same problems deleting their own files.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#24
What's depressingly hilarious is that employees generally hated this behavior, because useful information would often disappear before you were done with it. For example, someone answers your question on Friday after you've left and when you check messages on Monday it's gone. Or you'd want to refer to something from a conversation a few days ago and it'd been deleted as well.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#25
Why would good in mid 2019 know it had to save chat data for use in a lawsuit not filed for over another year? And why would such a lawsuit require saving all chats between everyone? Should google also have started video recording all in person meetings or stopped throwing out any trash in case there was something in those bins too?

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you're getting downvoted given the amount of snark in other comments. Or is the directness the part we're not supposed to be saying out loud?

You can criticize a person, you can criticize a company, but criticizing capitalism itself is never popular here. I've been called a communist for literally quoting Adam Smith.

Because we are talking about a specific company and their actions.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#27

And they also teach employees how to Communicate with Care: always CC a lawyer and ask a question. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/google-routinely... The issue here is not so much that Google is playing these games but how this draws energy away from OTHER games-- i.e. shipping and keeping alive new products and offering real customer service for existing ones.

> always CC a lawyer and ask a question

People would add lawyers like this, but (a) it wasn't something the trainings said to do, (b) the lawyers hated it, and (c) it doesn't work.

(I used to work at Google, speaking only for myself)

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you're getting downvoted given the amount of snark in other comments. Or is the directness the part we're not supposed to be saying out loud?

[flagged]

Economics isn't culture.

"Culture war" isn't just "disagreements", it's disagreements about things that only exist in the realm of culture, e.g. saggy pants or watching people of the same gender kiss on TV.

Economics, in fact, plays a central role here, given the profit motive that, to the bad actors, justifies these actions despite their illegality.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#30

Why would good in mid 2019 know it had to save chat data for use in a lawsuit not filed for over another year? And why would such a lawsuit require saving all chats between everyone? Should google also have started video recording all in person meetings or stopped throwing out any trash in case there was something in those bins too?

> Google’s duty to preserve documents began when it reasonably anticipated litigation. According to the company’s privilege logs, beginning as early as May 2019, Google began withholding materials “compiled in connection with ongoing DOJ investigation.” The United States then issued its first Civil Investigative Demand (CID) to Google on August 30, 2019, and issued two subsequent CIDs in October 2019.

If I'm reading this right- they allege that Google knew because they had already began withholding some materials and were issued 3 CIDs.

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