Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by stingrae » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:21 AM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #191

stingrae wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because many kinds of lawsuits (not only the government's) can go into discovery and when you have 130k+ employees generating discoverable materials it becomes very costly to search and provide these for lawsuits. It's easier to set an auto-delete policy and attempt to avoid certain things from being available for it. You aren't necessarily trying to hid conversations. You are trying to reduce the amount of cont…

Um, no. You're wrong about that. And I was there. In the beginning, all instant messages were saved. This was handy because a lot of useful, non-sensitive information was sent over IM. Then, lawsuits and Discovery happened, and "Off The Record" became the default. You could turn things On The Record if your conversation was non-sensitive. > You are trying to reduce the amount of content you have to search through Thi…

It changed circa 2015-2016.

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

#202

Post by gameman144 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

voakbasda wrote: post #95

theptip wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just tech; we're seeing this pressure in finance too. Matt Levine joked about this recently: > It really is wild that the SEC’s official position is now that it is illegal to “use unofficial communications to do things like cut deals, win clients or make trades.” “Conduct their communications about business matters within only official channels”! Imagine if that was really the rule! You can’t have lunch with a cl…

I'd be completely in favor of this... if first the politicians, lawmakers, and bureaucrats were all held to the same standard.

This seems really interesting to me. The US Constitution was only able to come about due to closed door discussion and debate, and that was one of the most positive outcomes in history for liberal democracy.

There are legitimate arguments for open discussions and records, but they can absolutely lead to a stifling of compromise and spur polarization.

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

#203

Post by gameman144 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #15

rlewkov wrote: post #9

But, but, but .... don't be evil.

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.

Eh, I'd identify as a capitalist and there are definitely lots of evil things far worse than loss of capital. Capitalism need not imply anarchy or surrendering our moral compass.

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

#204

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

altair222 wrote: post #177

spondyl wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appearing on CNBC once said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." It's always funny when Eric Schmidt says stuff like that. I've shared it before but I'll inline this evergreen quote from a book called In The Plex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27479152 > One day Denise Griffin got a call from Eric Schmid…

Google will decide what people should and shouldnt do. Google will decide whether people deserve privacy in their lives for certain things or not. Language of the abusers.

I al hoping that one day American society will wake up to the fact that Tyranny can, and has been privatised. It is not only the state that you should be afraid of.

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

#205

Post by FridgeSeal » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:52 AM UTC

eastbound wrote: post #37

m3kw9 wrote: post #18

It was a cron job your honour

Soon: It was The AI. We can’t do anything, since we can’t predict how it behaves. Turns out this time it wanted to protect Google, but ya never know.

Suddenly the EU’s ruling about AI: “you’ve got to be able to describe how it behaves” becomes a lot more powerful.

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

#206

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:55 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #179

wmeredith wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rules for thee, but not for me" may actually be the oldest trick in the book. Google's hypocrisy here is disappointing, but not surprising in the least.

Also, the CIA destroyed the torture video tapes to prevent embarrassment and further prosecutions of it's employees. So it kinda goes both ways.

You are demonstrating scary level of Moral Confusion.

CIA operates in the National interest, at least hypothetically. Google can operate against national interest to make money, or 'whoever pays most' interest.

The people of USA have granted CIA privileges of secrecy and legal protections explicitly to do ShadyShit. No-one ever gave Google permission to do ShadyShit.

CIA employees go through background checks, US Gov can fire head of CIA for being a dick. Google hires whoever the fuck they want and US government can't fire head of Google no matter what he does.

If Google is ever found doing 1% of what CIA does legally (and there ain't much!), they need to be in jail real fast.

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

#207

Post by user3939382 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

That’s fine. Judges in this case are instructed or instruct juries to, assume the missing evidence is maximally damaging for the defendant.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #206

bb88 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the CIA destroyed the torture video tapes to prevent embarrassment and further prosecutions of it's employees. So it kinda goes both ways.

You are demonstrating scary level of Moral Confusion. CIA operates in the National interest, at least hypothetically. Google can operate against national interest to make money, or 'whoever pays most' interest. The people of USA have granted CIA privileges of secrecy and legal protections explicitly to do ShadyShit. No-one ever gave Google permission to do ShadyShit. CIA employees go through background checks, US Gov…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 2:13 AM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #133

Funny how Google can ignore the privacy of internet users' conversations but when it comes to their employees' conversations, Google does not want to share those with the Government. According to the Government's memo supporting sanctions, Google is deleting conversations within 24h despite being under litigation holds. https://ia902501.us.archive.org/21/items/gov.uscourts.dcd.22... Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt app…

> To Schmidt, and 130,000+ other people on Google's corporate welfare

You are probably using the wrong expression.

Corporate Welfare means Welfare for Corporations. So it's when a government bestows money grants, tax breaks, or other special favourable treatment for corporations.

It is nothing to do with employees, not paying excessive salaries, or keeping unproductive ones around.

It does not imply that main beneficiaries are employees, typically it's about C-suite and shareholders.

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

#210

Post by mcqueenjordan » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

I really despise auto-delete policies. Obviously, because of the inconvenience and all the context/history/search capability you lose, but also because it's addressing the problem the wrong way. Rather than be accountable for your actions, the company would rather create a system to circumvent the law and sweep the evidence under the rug. Creates a terrible incentive structure. It goes to show that the company is run by lawyers.

Bezos had a great bit he would always say at all hands about this kind of stuff:

"Look, we are a large corporation. We deserve to be inspected. It’s going to happen. Don’t take it personally. Because when you take it personally, you start to do things that are counterproductive.”

"There’s only one way to handle it, and that is that we have to conduct ourselves in such a way that when we are scrutinized, we pass with flying colors.”